Verse 2

the people--of Babylon, primarily. Of the whole Gentile world ultimately (Isa 49:22; Isa 66:20; Isa 60:9). their place--Judea (Ezr 1:1-6). possess--receive in possession. captives--not by physical, but by moral might; the force of love, and regard to Israel's God (Isa 60:14).

Verse 3

rest-- (Isa 28:12; Eze 28:25-26). The whole earth rejoices; the cedars of Lebanon taunt him.

Verse 4

A CHORUS OF JEWS EXPRESS THEIR JOYFUL SURPRISE AT BABYLON'S DOWNFALL. (Isa 14:4-8) proverb--The Orientals, having few books, embodied their thoughts in weighty, figurative, briefly expressed gnomes. Here a taunting song of triumph (Mic 2:4; Hab 2:6). the king--the ideal representative of Babylon; perhaps Belshazzar (Dan. 5:1-31). The mystical Babylon is ultimately meant. golden city--rather, "the exactress of gold" [MAURER]. But the old translators read differently in the Hebrew, "oppression," which the parallelism favors (compare Isa 3:5).

Verse 5

staff--not the scepter (Psa 2:9), but the staff with which one strikes others, as he is speaking of more tyrants than one (Isa 9:4; Isa 10:24; Isa 14:29) [MAURER]. rulers--tyrants, as the parallelism "the wicked" proves (compare see on Isa 13:2).

Verse 6

people--the peoples subjected to Babylon. is persecuted--the Hebrew is rather, active, "which persecuted them, without any to hinder him" [Vulgate, JEROME, and HORSLEY].

Verse 7

they--the once subject nations of the whole earth. HOUBIGANT places the stop after "fir trees" (Isa 14:8), "The very fir trees break forth," &c. But the parallelism is better in English Version.

Verse 8

the fir trees--now left undisturbed. Probably a kind of evergreen. rejoice at thee-- (Psa 96:12). At thy fall (Psa 35:19, Psa 35:24). no feller--as formerly, when thou wast in power (Isa 10:34; Isa 37:24). Hades (the Amenthes of Egypt), the unseen abode of the departed; some of its tenants, once mighty monarchs, are represented by a bold personification as rising from their seats in astonishment at the descent among them of the humbled king of Babylon. This proves, in opposition to WARBURTON [The Divine Legation], that the belief existed among the Jews that there was a Sheol or Hades, in which the "Rephaim" or manes of the departed abode.

Verse 9

THE SCENE CHANGES FROM EARTH TO HELL. (Isa 14:9-11) moved--put into agitation. for thee--that is, "at thee"; towards thee; explained by "to meet thee at thy coming" [MAURER]. chief ones--literally, "goats"; so rams, leaders of the flock; princes (Zac 10:3). The idea of wickedness on a gigantic scale is included (Eze 34:17; Mat 25:32-33). MAGEE derives "Rephaim" (English Version, "the dead") from a Hebrew root, "to resolve into first elements"; so "the deceased" (Isa 26:14) "ghosts" (Pro 21:16). These being magnified by the imagination of the living into gigantic stature, gave their name to giants in general (Gen 6:4; Gen 14:5; Eze 32:18, Eze 32:21). "Rephaim," translated in the Septuagint, "giants" (compare see on Job 26:5-6). Thence, as the giant Rephaim of Canaan were notorious even in that guilty land, enormous wickedness became connected with the term. So the Rephaim came to be the wicked spirits in Gehenna, the lower of the two portions into which Sheol is divided.

Verse 10

They taunt him and derive from his calamity consolation under their own (Eze 31:16). weak--as a shade bereft of blood and life. Rephaim, "the dead," may come from a Hebrew root, meaning similarly "feeble," "powerless." The speech of the departed closes with Isa 14:11.

Verse 11

"Pomp" and music, the accompaniment of Babylon's former feastings (Isa 5:12; Isa 24:8), give place to the corruption and the stillness of the grave (Eze 32:27). worm--that is bred in putridity. worms--properly those from which the crimson dye is obtained. Appropriate here; instead of the crimson coverlet, over thee shall be "worms." Instead of the gorgeous couch, "under thee" shall be the maggot. The language is so framed as to apply to the Babylonian king primarily, and at the same time to shadow forth through him, the great final enemy, the man of sin, Antichrist, of Daniel, St. Paul, and St. John; he alone shall fulfil exhaustively all the lineaments here given.

Verse 12

THE JEWS ADDRESS HIM AGAIN AS A FALLEN ONCE-BRIGHT STAR. (Isa 14:12-15) Lucifer--"day star." A title truly belonging to Christ (Rev 22:16), "the bright and morning star," and therefore hereafter to be assumed by Antichrist. GESENIUS, however, renders the Hebrew here as in Eze 21:12; Zac 11:2, "howl." weaken--"prostrate"; as in Exo 17:13, "discomfit."

Verse 13

above . . . God--In Dan 8:10, "stars" express earthly potentates. "The stars" are often also used to express heavenly principalities (Job 38:7). mount of the congregation--the place of solemn meeting between God and His people in the temple at Jerusalem. In Dan 11:37, and Th2 2:4, this is attributed to Antichrist. sides of the north--namely, the sides of Mount Moriah on which the temple was built; north of Mount Zion (Psa 48:2). However, the parallelism supports the notion that the Babylonian king expresses himself according to his own, and not Jewish opinions (so in Isa 10:10) thus "mount of the congregation" will mean the northern mountain (perhaps in Armenia) fabled by the Babylonians to be the common meeting-place of their gods. "Both sides" imply the angle in which the sides meet; and so the expression comes to mean "the extreme parts of the north." So the Hindus place the Meru, the dwelling-place of their gods, in the north, in the Himalayan mountains. So the Greeks, in the northern Olympus. The Persian followers of Zoroaster put the Ai-bordsch in the Caucasus north of them. The allusion to the stars harmonizes with this; namely, that those near the North Pole, the region of the aurora borealis (compare see on Job 23:9; Job 37:22) [MAURER, Septuagint, Syriac].

Verse 14

clouds--rather, "the cloud," singular. Perhaps there is a reference to the cloud, the symbol of the divine presence (Isa 4:5; Exo 13:21). So this tallies with Th2 2:4, "above all that is called God"; as here "above . . . the cloud"; and as the Shekinah-cloud was connected with the temple, there follows, "he as God sitteth in the temple of God," answering to "I will be like the Most High" here. Moreover, Rev 17:4-5, represents Antichrist as seated in BABYLON, to which city, literal and spiritual, Isaiah refers here.

Verse 15

to hell--to Sheol (Isa 14:6), thou who hast said, "I will ascend into heaven" (Mat 11:23). sides of the pit--antithetical to the "sides of the north" (Isa 14:13). Thus the reference is to the sides of the sepulcher round which the dead were arranged in niches. But MAURER here, as in Isa 14:13, translates, "the extreme," or innermost parts of the sepulchre: as in Eze 32:23 (compare Sa1 24:3).

Verse 16

THE PASSERS-BY CONTEMPLATE WITH ASTONISHMENT THE BODY OF THE KING OF BABYLON CAST OUT, INSTEAD OF LYING IN A SPLENDID MAUSOLEUM, AND CAN HARDLY BELIEVE THEIR SENSES THAT IT IS HE. (Isa 14:16-20) narrowly look--to be certain they are not mistaken. consider--"meditate upon" [HORSLEY].

Verse 17

opened not . . . house . . . prisoners--But MAURER, as Margin, "Did not let his captives loose homewards."

Verse 18

All--that is, This is the usual practice. in glory--in a grand mausoleum. house--that is, "sepulchre," as in Ecc 12:5; "grave" (Isa 14:19). To be excluded from the family sepulcher was a mark of infamy (Isa 34:3; Jer 22:19; Kg1 13:22; Ch2 21:20; Ch2 24:25; Ch2 28:27).

Verse 19

cast out of--not that he had lain in the grave and was then cast out of it, but "cast out without a grave," such as might have been expected by thee ("thy"). branch--a useless sucker starting up from the root of a tree, and cut away by the husbandman. raiment of those . . . slain--covered with gore, and regarded with abhorrence as unclean by the Jews. Rather, "clothed (that is, covered) with the slain"; as in Job 7:5, "My flesh is clothed with worms and clods of dust" [MAURER]. thrust through--that is, "the slain who have been thrust through," &c. stones of . . . pit--whose bodies are buried in sepulchres excavated amidst stones, whereas the king of Babylon is an unburied "carcass trodden under foot."

Verse 20

not . . . joined with them--whereas the princes slain with thee shall be buried, thou shalt not. thou . . . destroyed . . . land--Belshazzar (or Naboned) oppressed his land with wars and tyranny, so that he was much hated [XENOPHON, CyropÃ&brvbrdia 4.6, 3; 7.5, 32]. seed . . . never be renowned--rather, "shall not be named for ever"; the Babylonian dynasty shall end with Belshazzar; his family shall not be perpetuated [HORSLEY].

Verse 21

GOD'S DETERMINATION TO DESTROY BABYLON. (Isa 14:21-23) Prepare, &c.--charge to the Medes and Persians, as if they were God's conscious instruments. his children--Belshazzar's (Exo 20:5). rise--to occupy the places of their fathers. fill . . . with cities--MAURER translates, "enemies," as the Hebrew means in Sa1 28:16; Psa 139:20; namely, lest they inundate the world with their armies. VITRINGA translates, "disturbers." In English Version the meaning is, "lest they fill the land with such cities" of pride as Babylon was.

Verse 22

against them--the family of the king of Babylon. name--all the male representatives, so that the name shall become extinct (Isa 56:5; Rut 4:5). remnant--all that is left of them. The dynasty shall cease (Dan 5:28-31). Compare as to Babylon in general, Jer 51:62.

Verse 23

bittern--rather, "the hedgehog" [MAURER and GESENIUS]. STRABO (16:1) states that enormous hedgehogs were found in the islands of the Euphrates. pools--owing to Cyrus turning the waters of the Euphrates over the country. besom--sweep-net [MAURER], (Kg1 14:10; Kg2 21:13). This would comfort the Jews when captives in Babylon, being a pledge that God, who had by that time fulfilled the promise concerning Sennacherib (though now still future), would also fulfil His promise as to destroying Babylon, Judah's enemy.

Verse 24

A FRAGMENT AS TO THE DESTRUCTION OF THE ASSYRIANS UNDER SENNACHERIB. (Isa 14:24-27) In this verse the Lord's thought (purpose) stands in antithesis to the Assyrians' thoughts (Isa 10:7). (See Isa 46:10-11; Sa1 15:29; Mal 3:6).

Verse 25

That--My purpose, namely, "that." break . . . yoke-- (Isa 10:27). my mountains--Sennacherib's army was destroyed on the mountains near Jerusalem (Isa 10:33-34). God regarded Judah as peculiarly His.

Verse 26

This is . . . purpose . . . whole earth--A hint that the prophecy embraces the present world of all ages in its scope, of which the purpose concerning Babylon and Assyria, the then representatives of the world power, is but a part. hand . . . stretched out upon--namely, in punishment (Isa 5:25).

Verse 27

(Dan 4:35). To comfort the Jews, lest they should fear that people; not in order to call the Philistines to repentance, since the prophecy was probably never circulated among them. They had been subdued by Uzziah or Azariah (Ch2 26:6); but in the reign of Ahaz (Ch2 28:18), they took several towns in south Judea. Now Isaiah denounces their final subjugation by Hezekiah.

Verse 28

PROPHECY AGAINST PHILISTIA. (Isa 14:28-32) In . . . year . . . Ahaz died--726 B.C. Probably it was in this year that the Philistines threw off the yoke put on them by Uzziah.

Verse 29

Palestina--literally, "the land of sojourners." rod . . . broken--The yoke imposed by Uzziah (Ch2 26:6) was thrown off under Ahaz (Ch2 28:18). serpent's root--the stock of Jesse (Isa 11:1). Uzziah was doubtless regarded by the Philistines as a biting "serpent." But though the effects of his bite have been got rid of, a more deadly viper, or "cockatrice" (literally, "viper's offspring," as Philistia would regard him), namely, Hezekiah awaits you (Kg2 18:8).

Verse 30

first-born of . . . poor--Hebraism, for the most abject poor; the first-born being the foremost of the family. Compare "first-born of death" (Job 18:13), for the most fatal death. The Jews, heretofore exposed to Philistine invasions and alarms, shall be in safety. Compare Psa 72:4, "Children of the needy," expressing those "needy in condition." feed--image from a flock feeding in safety. root--radical destruction. He shall slay--Jehovah shall. The change of person, "He" after "I," is a common Hebraism.

Verse 31

gate--that is, ye who throng the gate; the chief place of concourse in a city. from . . . north--Judea, north and east of Palestine. smoke--from the signal-fire, whereby a hostile army was called together; the Jews' signal-fire is meant here, the "pillar of cloud and fire," (Exo 13:21; Neh 9:19); or else from the region devastated by fire [MAURER]. GESENIUS less probably refers it to the cloud of dust raised by the invading army. none . . . alone . . . in . . . appointed times--Rather, "There shall not be a straggler among his (the enemy's) levies." The Jewish host shall advance on Palestine in close array; none shall fall back or lag from weariness (Isa 5:26-27), [LOWTH]. MAURER thinks the Hebrew will not bear the rendering "levies" or "armies." He translates, "There is not one (of the Philistine watch guards) who will remain alone (exposed to the enemy) at his post," through fright. On "alone," compare Psa 102:7; Hos 8:9.

Verse 32

messengers of the nation--When messengers come from Philistia to enquire as to the state of Judea, the reply shall be, that the Lord . . . (Psa 87:1, Psa 87:5; Psa 102:16). poor-- (Zep 3:12). LOWTH thinks it was delivered in the first years of Hezekiah's reign and fulfilled in the fourth when Shalmaneser, on his way to invade Israel, may have seized on the strongholds of Moab. Moab probably had made common cause with Israel and Syria in a league against Assyria. Hence it incurred the vengeance of Assyria. Jeremiah has introduced much of this prophecy into his forty-eighth chapter. Next: Isaiah Chapter 15

Verse 1

For the Lord will have mercy on Jacob, will yet choose Israel,.... While the Jews were in captivity, the Lord seemed to have no pity for them, or compassion on them, and it looked as if he had rejected them, and wholly cast them off; but by delivering them from thence, he showed that he had a merciful regard unto them, and made it to appear that they were his chosen people, and beloved by him: and this is a reason why Babylon should be destroyed, and her destruction be no longer deferred, because the Lord's heart of compassion yearned towards his own people, so that his mercy to them brought ruin upon others: a choice of persons to everlasting salvation, though it is not made in time, but before the foundation of the world, yet is made to appear by the effectual calling, which therefore is sometimes expressed by choosing, Co1 1:26 and is the fruit and effect of sovereign grace and mercy, and may be intended here; the words may be rendered, "and will yet choose in Israel" (t), some from among them; that is, have mercy on them, and call them by his grace, and so show them to be a remnant, according to the election of grace; and such a chosen remnant there was among them in the times of Christ, and his apostles, by which it appeared that the Lord had not cast off the people whom he foreknew: and set them in their own land: or "cause them to rest upon their own land" (u); for the word not only denotes settlement and continuance, but rest, which they had not in Babylon; but now should have, when brought into their own land; and no doubt but reference is had to the original character of the land of Canaan, as a land of rest; and hither shall the Jews be brought again, and be settled when mystical Babylon is destroyed: and the stranger shall be joined with them, and they shall cleave to the house of Jacob; by which is meant, that proselytes should be made to the Jewish religion, who should be admitted into their church state, as well as into their commonwealth, and should abide faithful to the profession they made; which doubtless was fulfilled in part at the time of the Jews' return from the Babylonish captivity, when many, who had embraced their religion, cleaved to them, and would not leave them, but went along with them into their land, that they might join with them in religious worship there; but had a greater accomplishment in Gospel times, when Gentiles were incorporated into the same Gospel church state with the believing Jews, and became fellow heirs, and of the same body, and partakers of the same promises and privileges; and so Kimchi and Ben Melech apply this to the times of the Messiah; and Jarchi to time to come, when Israel should be redeemed with a perfect redemption: because from the word translated "cleave" is derived another, which signifies a scab; hence the Jews (w) have a saying, "proselytes are grievous to Israel as a scab.'' (t) "et eliget adhuc in Israele", Pagninus, Montanus. (u) "et requiescere eos faciet", V. L. Pagninus, Montanus. (w) T. Bab. Yebamot, fol. 47. 2. & Kiddushin, fol. 70. 2.

Verse 2

And the people shall take them, and bring them to their place,.... That is, the people among whom the Jews dwelt in Babylon, who had a kindness for them, and especially such of them as were proselyted to their religion should attend them in their journey home, and supply them with all necessaries for provision and carriage, as they were allowed to do by the edict of Cyrus, Ezr 1:4 and this will have a further accomplishment in the latter day, when the Gentiles shall bring their sons and daughters in their arms, and on their shoulders, and on horses, and in chariots, to Jerusalem, Isa 49:21 which last passage Kimchi refers to, as explanative of this: and the house of Israel shall possess them in the land of the Lord, for servants and handmaids; by the "land of the Lord" is meant the land of Israel, which was peculiarly his; for though the whole earth is his, yet he chose this above all others for the place of his worship, under the former dispensation; and where his son, in the fulness of time, should appear in human nature, preach the Gospel, perform miracles, and work out the salvation of his people; and where his feet shall stand at the latter day, when he comes to judge the world; this is the same with Immanuel's land, Isa 8:8 hither many of the Chaldeans coming along with the Jews, and having embraced their religion, chose rather to be servants and handmaids to them, than to return to their own land, and who were a kind of inheritance or possession to the Jews; though some think that these were such as they bought of the Babylonians, that came with them to be their servants, and not they themselves. It may be understood of Gentile converts in Gospel times, who would willingly and cheerfully engage in the service of the church of God, and by love serve his people, and one another. Kimchi explains this clause by Isa 61:5, and they shall take them captives, whose captives they were; and they shall rule over their oppressors: that is, the Babylonians, who had carried the Jews captive, should be taken captives by them, and made slaves of; which might be true of those they bought of them, when they returned to their own land; or, as some think, this had its accomplishment in the times of the Maccabees, when they conquered many people, who before had carried them captive, and oppressed them; and in a spiritual and mystical sense has been fulfilled in the times of the Gospel, through the spread of it in the Gentile world, by the ministry of the apostles, who were Jews; by which means many of the nations of the world were brought to the obedience of Christ and his church.

Verse 3

And it shall come to pass in the day that the Lord shall give thee rest from thy sorrow,.... In captivity, and on account of that, being out of their own land, deprived of the free exercise of their religion, and at a distance from the house of God, and continually hearing the reproaches and blaspheming of the enemy, and seeing their idolatrous practices, and their ungodly conversation; all which must create sorrow of heart to the sincere lovers and worshippers of God: and from thy fear; of worse evils, most cruel usage, and death itself, under the terror of which they lived: and from the hard bondage wherein thou wast made to serve; as before in Egypt, so now in Babylon; but what that was is not particularly expressed anywhere, as the former is, see Exo 1:13 and when they had rest from all this in their own land, then they should do as follows:

Verse 4

That thou shall take up this proverb against the king of Babylon,.... Or "concerning" him, his fall, and the fall of the Babylonish monarchy with him; if we understand this of any particular king of Babylon, it seems best not to interpret it of Nebuchadnezzar, whom Jerom mentions, in whom the empire was in its greatest glory: but of Belshazzar, in whom it ended; the king of Babylon may be here considered as a type of antichrist, and what is said of the one may be applied to the other: the "proverb" or "parable" taken up into the mouth, and expressed concerning him, signifies a sharp and acute speech, a taunting one, full of ironies and sarcasms, and biting expressions, as the following one is. The Septuagint render it, a "lamentation"; and the Arabic version, a "mournful song"; but as this was to be taken up by the church and people of God, concerning their great enemy, whose destruction is here described, it may rather be called a triumphant song, rejoicing at his ruin, and insulting over him: and say, how hath the oppressor ceased! he who oppressed us, and other nations, exacted tribute of us, and of others, and made us to serve with hard bondage, how is he come to nothing? by what means is he brought to ruin; by whom is this accomplished? who has been the author of it, and by whom effected? this is said as wondering how it should be brought about, and rejoicing that so it was: the golden city ceased! the city of Babylon, full of gold, drawn thither from the various parts of the world, called a golden cup, Jer 51:7 and the Babylonish monarchy, in the times of Nebuchadnezzar, was signified by a golden head, Dan 2:32 so mystical Babylon, or the Romish antichrist, is represented as decked with gold, and having a golden cup in her hand; and as a city abounding with gold, Rev 17:4. The word here used is a Chaldee or Syriac word (x), and perhaps is what was used by themselves, and is the name by which they called this city, and is now tauntingly returned; the word city is not in the text, but supplied. Some render "tribute" (y), a golden pension, a tribute of gold, which was exacted of the nations in subjection, but now ceased; and when that tyrant and oppressor, the Romish antichrist, shall cease that tribute which he exacts of the nations of the earth will cease also, as tithes, first fruits, annates, Peter's pence, &c. (x) (y) "Tributum", V. L. Cocceius; "aurea pensio", Montanus; "aurum tributarium", Munster.

Verse 5

The Lord hath broken the staff of the wicked,.... This is an answer to the above question, how the exactor and his tribute came to cease; this was not by man, but by the Lord himself; for though he made use of Cyrus, the work was his own, he broke the power of the wicked kings of Babylon: and the sceptre of the rulers; that were under the king of Babylon; or of the several kings themselves, Nebuchadnezzar, Evilmerodach, and Belshazzar; so Kimchi interprets it. This may be applied to the kingdom of antichrist, and the antichristian states, which shall be broken to shivers as a potter's vessel by Christ, the King of kings, and Lord of lords, Rev 2:27. The "staff" and "sceptre" are emblems of power and government; and "breaking" them signifies the utter destruction and cessation of authority and dominion.

Verse 6

He who smote the people in wrath with a continual stroke,.... The king of Babylon, who made war with the people and nations of the earth, and conquered them, smote them with the edge of the sword to gratify his passions, and satiate his bloodthirsty mind; and those that were spared, he ruled with rigour, and oppressed them with tribute and hard bondage; and, when he had conquered one nation, attacked another, and so went on pursuing his victories without intermission, giving no respite neither to his army, nor to the people: he that ruled the nations in anger; not with justice and clemency, but in a tyrannical and oppressive way, even his own nation, as well as the nations whom he subdued: is persecuted; is, pursued by the justice of God, overtaken and seized, and brought to condign punishment; and none hindereth; the execution of the righteous judgment upon him; none of the neighbouring kings and nations, either tributary to him, or in alliance with him, give him the least help or assistance, or attempt to ward off the blow upon him, given him, under the direction and appointment of God, by Cyrus the Persian. So the Romish antichrist, who has made war with the saints, and has smitten them with the sword, and gone on to do so without any intermission for ages together, and has tyrannised over them in a most cruel manner, he shall be persecuted, and taken, and brought to his end, and there shall be none to help him; see Rev 13:7.

Verse 7

The whole earth is at rest, and is quiet,.... The troubler of them being gone; and which will be the ease of the people of God, who in the latter day will fill the face of the earth, when the beast and false prophet will be taken and cast alive into the lake of fire; and especially when Satan shall be bound, and put in prison for a thousand years, that he may deceive the nations no more, Rev 19:20, they break forth into singing; that is, the inhabitants of the earth, because of the fall of the king of Babylon, they being delivered from so great a tyrant or oppressor; or, "utter a song of praise", as the Targum, Aben Ezra says the word in the Arabic language is expressive of "clearness", and so it does signify to speak purely, dearly, and fluently, with open, mouth, and a clear voice (z); it is rendered in Psa 98:4 "make a loud noise"; by singing a joyful song; and such a song will be sung by the church, when the mystical Babylon is fallen; see Rev 15:2. (z) "perspicuo, puriore sermone fuit, fluida oratione disertas fuit, ----diserte, eleganter locutus est", Castel. col. 3040.

Verse 8

Yea, the fir trees rejoice at thee, and the cedars of Lebanon,.... Which by, a prosopopoeia are represented as singing and rejoicing, as inanimate creatures often are in Scripture, these being now in no danger of being cut down, to make way for his armies; see Isa 37:34 or to furnish him with timber for shipping, or building of houses: or else these words are to be understood metaphorically of kings and princes of the earth, comparable to such trees, for their height, strength, and substance; see Zac 11:2 who would now be no longer in fear of him, or in subjection to him. So the Targum, "the rulers also rejoiced over thee, the rich in substance said;'' not only the common people, the inhabitants of the earth, as before, but the princes of it rejoiced at his ruin; and so will the kings of the earth rejoice at the destruction of the whore of Rome, when they shall hate her, eat her flesh, and burn her with fire; though others, that have committed fornication with her, will lament her case, Rev 17:16, saying, since thou art, laid down; or "art asleep" (a); that is, dead; it being usual in the eastern nations to express death by sleep: no feller is come up against us; or "cutter of wood", to whom the king of Babylon is compared, for cutting down nations, and bringing them into subjection to him, in whose heart it was to destroy and cut off nations, not a few; being as an axe in the hand of the Lord, whereby trees, large and high, were cut down; see Isa 10:5 but now, since this feller of wood was gone, the axe was laid aside, and broke to pieces, there was none to give the nations any disturbance; and so it will be when antichrist is destroyed, there will be no more persecution of the church and people of God. (a) "dormisti", Pagninus.

Verse 9

Hell from beneath is moved for thee,.... Or the "grave", or the place and state of the dead, and particularly of the damned, meaning those that are in such a place and state; and the sense is, that not only the inhabitants of the earth, and the trees upon it, express their joy at the fall of the king of Babylon, but those that are under the earth, in the grave, or in hell, are affected with it, and moved on account of it, not with fear and dread, as they were in his and their life time, as Kimchi suggests; but they are represented as in motion, and that as attended with a great noise, because of the multitude of them, upon hearing of his death, and his entrance into the regions of the dead: to meet thee at thy coming: as kings used to be met when they, and as he used to be when he, entered into any city that was taken, to salute him, and congratulate him upon his entrance into the dark regions of death, the grave, and hell; a biting sarcasm: it stirreth up the dead for thee; the dead that are in it, in hell or the grave; not to oppose him, but to welcome him into their parts, as being now one of them, and to be joined to their company; hell or the grave is said to rouse them, as if they were asleep, and took no notice of the death of so great a monarch, who was just making his public entry among them. The word "Rephaim", here used, is sometimes rendered "giants", as in Deu 2:11 and Jarchi interprets it of the Anakim; and so the Targum, "it raiseth up unto thee mighty men;'' for not the common people among the dead, but the princes and great ones of the earth, whom the Babylonian monarch had subdued and slain, and to whom he was well known, are intended, as appears by what follows: even all the chief ones of the earth; or the "great goats"; the leaders and commanders of the people, who, as goats go before and lead the flock, so they the people. The Targum calls them "all the rich in substance;'' who were persons of wealth, power, and authority, when on earth: it hath raised up from their thrones all the kings of the nations; to offer in a jeering manner their thrones to him, who had been obliged, in their life time and his, to surrender to him their crowns, and thrones, and kingdoms; but by their thrones here are meant their sepulchres, built, as many of them were, in great pomp and splendour; for kings at death have no other thrones but their graves. Aben Ezra says, it was the custom of the Babylonians to set thrones in the sepulchres of their kings.

Verse 10

All they shall speak, and say unto thee,.... So they would say, could they speak, and are here represented as if they did: art thou become also weak as we? who had been more powerful than they, had been too many for them, and had subdued them, and ruled over them, and was not only looked upon as invincible but as immortal, yea, as a deity; and yet now was become "sick", as the word (b) signifies, or by sickness brought to death, and by death enfeebled and rendered weak and without strength, stripped of all natural strength, as well as of all civil power and authority: art thou become like unto us? who thought himself, and was flattered by others, that there were none like unto him; but now as the rest of the dead, and upon a level with them. So will it be with the Romish antichrist, who now exalts himself above all that is called God, and reigns over the kings of the earth, and shows himself as if he was God, and of whom his parasites say, "who is like unto the beast? who is able to make war with him?" when he shall be consumed by Christ, and cast into the lake of fire with the devil and false prophet, he will be like the kings of the earth deceived by him, and the rest of the worshippers of him, and be as weak as they, Th2 2:4, Rev 20:10. (b) a "aegrotuss fuit".

Verse 11

Thy pomp is brought down to the grave,.... Or "hell"; all the state and majesty in which he appeared, when sitting on the throne of his kingdom, with a glittering crown on his head, a sceptre in his hand, clad in the richest apparel, and attended by his princes and nobles with the utmost reverence and submission; all this, with much more, followed him to the regions of the dead, and there it left him; see Psa 49:17, and the noise of thy viols; or musical instruments, even all of them, one being put for all; such as were used at festivals, and at times of joy and rejoicing, of which the Babylonians had many, and very probably were used at the feast by Belshazzar, when the city was taken, and he was slain; to which reference may be had in this place, Dan 3:5 compare with this Rev 18:16, the worm is spread under thee, and the worms cover thee; who used to have rich carpets spread for him to tread upon, and stately canopies under which he sat, beds of down to lie upon, and the richest covering over him, and now, nothing but worms over him, and worms under him; or instead of being wrapped in gold and silk, and embalmed with the most precious spices, as the eastern kings used to be, he had not so much as a grave, but was cast out of that, as is after said, and so was liable to putrefaction, and to be covered with worms at once; worms in his bed, and worms in his bed clothes! See Job 21:26.

Verse 12

How art thou fallen from heaven,.... This is not to be understood of the fall of Satan, and the apostate angels, from their first estate, when they were cast down from heaven to hell, though there may be an allusion to it; see Luk 10:18 but the words are a continuation of the speech of the dead to the king of Babylon, wondering at it, as a thing almost incredible, that he who seemed to be so established on the throne of his kingdom, which was his heaven, that he should be deposed or fall from it. So the destruction of the Roman Pagan emperors is signified by the casting out of the dragon and his angels from heaven, Rev 12:7 and in like manner Rome Papal, or the Romish antichrist, will fall from his heaven of outward splendour and happiness, of honour and authority, now, possessed by him: O Lucifer, son of the morning! alluding to the star Venus, which is the phosphorus or morning star, which ushers in the light of the morning, and shows that day is at hand; by which is meant, not Satan, who is never in Scripture called Lucifer, though he was once an angel of light, and sometimes transforms himself into one, and the good angels are called morning stars, Job 38:7 and such he and his angels once were; but the king of Babylon is intended, whose royal glory and majesty, as outshining all the rest of the kings of the earth, is expressed by those names; and which perhaps were such as he took himself, or were given him by his courtiers. The Targum is, "how art thou fallen from on high, who was shining among the sons of men, as the star Venus among the stars.'' Jarchi, as the Talmud (c), applies it to Nebuchadnezzar; though, if any particular person is pointed at, Belshazzar is rather designed, the last of the kings of Babylon. The church of Rome, in the times of the apostles, was famous for its light and knowledge; its faith was spoken of throughout all the earth; and its bishops or pastors were bright stars, in the morning of the Gospel dispensation: how art thou cut down to the ground; like a tall tree that is cut down, and laid along the ground, and can never rise and flourish more, to which sometimes great monarchs and monarchies are compared; see Isa 10:18 and this denotes that the king of Babylon should die, not a natural, but a violent death, as Belshazzar did, with whom the Babylonish monarchy fell, and never rose more; and this is a representation of the sudden, violent, and irrecoverable ruin of the Romish antichrist, Rev 18:21, which didst weaken the nations! by subduing them, taking cities and towns, plundering the inhabitants of their substance, carrying them captive, or obliging them to a yearly tribute, by which means he weakened them, and kept them under. So the Romish antichrist has got the power over many nations of the earth, and has reigned over the kings of it, and by various methods has drained them of their wealth and riches, and so greatly enfeebled them; nay, they have of themselves given their power and strength unto the beast, Rev 17:12. Several of the Jewish writers observe, that the word here used signifies to cast lots; and so it is used in the Misna (d), and explained in the Talmud (e); and is applied to the king of Babylon casting lots upon the nations and kingdoms whom he should go to war with, and subdue first; see Eze 21:19. The Targum is, "thou art cast down to the earth, who killedst the people:'' a fit description of antichrist, Rev 11:7. (c) T. Bab. Cholin, fol. 89. 1. Gloss. in Pesachim, fol. 94. 1. & Chagiga, fol. 13. 1. (d) Misn. Sabbat, c. 23. 2. & Maimon. & Bartenora in ib. (e) T. Bab. Sabbat, fol. 149. 2.

Verse 13

For thou hast said in thine heart,.... Which shows the pride and haughtiness that were in his heart; and were the cause and reason of his fall, for pride goes before a fall; it was the cause of the fall of angels, and of Adam, and of many kings and kingdoms; see Pro 16:18 with this compare Rev 18:7, I will ascend into heaven; be above all men, rule over the whole world; and so the Targum. "I will ascend on high;'' unless by it is meant the temple at Jerusalem, where Jehovah dwelt, an emblem of heaven, to which sense the following clauses incline; and so the Romish antichrist sits in the temple of God, and on his throne as if he was God, Th2 2:4. I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; which he has made and set in the heavens, and preserves; meaning either the angels, Job 38:7 or rather the kings and princes of the earth, over whom he placed himself, having subdued them under him. It may be applied to ecclesiastical persons, pastors, and bishops of churches, compared to stars, Rev 1:20 the third part of which the dragon drew with his tail, Rev 12:4 and over whom the bishop of Rome has usurped an universal dominion. The Targum is, "over the people of God I will put the throne of my kingdom;'' notoriously true of the man of sin: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north: that is, as some think, in the temple where the tribes of Israel gathered together for worship, which was built upon Mount Zion; which, as Kimchi says, lay north of Jerusalem; see Psa 48:2 so the tabernacle is often called the tabernacle of the congregation; but, as Cocceius and Vitringa observe, Mount Zion was not to the north, but to the south of Jerusalem; wherefore not that mount, but Mount Moriah, which was to the north of Mount Zion, is designed; however, not Babylon is here meant, as R. Joseph Kimchi thought; called, as he supposes, "the mount of the congregation", because all the world were gathered thither to the king of Babylon; and a "mount", because a strong city; and said to be "in the sides of the north", because it lay north east to the continent; but, as one observes, he had no need to boast of sitting there, where he was already. Jarchi thinks the last clause refers to the north side of the altar, in the court, where the sacrifice was killed, Lev 1:11 and may point at the seat of the Romish antichrist, and the sacerdotal power usurped by him, to offer sacrifice for the sins of men, particularly the bloodless sacrifice of the Mass.

Verse 14

I will ascend above the heights of the clouds,.... Which are the chariots of God, and in which he rides, and so this proud monarch affected to be as he; perhaps some reference is had to the cloud in which Jehovah dwelt in the temple. The Targum is, "I will ascend above all people,'' compared to clouds for their multitude. In the mystical sense, the true ministers of the word may be meant, so called for their height, motion, swiftness, and fulness of Gospel doctrine, compared to rain; see Isa 5:6. I will be like the most High; so Satan affected to be, and this was the bait he laid for our first parents, and with which they were taken; and nothing less than deity could satisfy some ambitious princes, as Caligula, and others; and this was what the Babylonish monarch aspired to, and ordered to be ascribed to him, and be regarded as such, either while living, or at least after death, which was what had been done to many Heathen princes. So antichrist is represented as showing himself to be God, Th2 2:4 by calling and suffering himself to be called God; by assuming all power in heaven and in earth; taking upon him to depose kings and dispose of kingdoms at pleasure; dispensing with the laws of God, and making new ones; absolving men from their oaths, pardoning their sins, setting up himself as infallible, as the sole interpreter of Scripture, and judge of controversies. The Targum is, "I will he higher than them all;'' than the kings of the earth, and all other bishops.

Verse 15

Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell,.... Into a very low and miserable condition; see Mat 11:23 instead of ascending to heaven: or "to the grave"; though, inasmuch as afterwards a burial is denied him, the word may be taken for the infernal pit, and so is, as much as can be, opposed to heaven; and this will be true of antichrist, when the beast and false prophet will be cast alive into the lake of fire, Rev 19:20, to the sides of the pit; instead of being on the mount of the congregation in the sides of the north; another word for hell, the pit of corruption, and the bottomless pit. The Targum is, "to the ends of the lake of the house of perdition;'' the place of everlasting destruction.

Verse 16

They that see thee,.... These are the words of the dead, speaking of the living, who when they should see the carcass of the king of Babylon lying on the ground, shall narrowly look upon thee, and consider thee; whether it is he or not, not knowing at first sight who he was, the alteration being so great; he that was but just now on his throne of glory, with all the ensigns of majesty about him, and on him, now cast to the earth, deprived of life, besmeared with blood, and so disfigured as scarcely to be known; these phrases are used to express the great change made in him, and in his state and condition: saying; scarce believing what they saw, and as wondering at the sudden and strange alteration, and yet in an insulting manner: Is this the man that made the earth to tremble: the inhabitants of it, when they heard of his coming against them, with his numerous and conquering army, dreading that he would do to them as he had done to others, destroy their cities, rob them of their substance, put them to the sword, or carry them captive, or make them tributary: that did shake kingdoms; depose their kings, and set up others; alter their constitution, change their form of government, and added their kingdoms to his own.

Verse 17

That made the world as a wilderness,.... Both by destroying the inhabitants of it, and by laying waste cities, towns, villages, fields, vineyards, gardens, and all places improved and cultivated, wherever he came, as it follows: and destroyed the cities thereof; as the Assyrian kings had done, some of which are mentioned in Isa 10:9, that opened not the house of his prisoners; the prison house, in, which they were held; or, "the gate to his prisoners,'' as the Targum; or rather the words may be rendered, "that opened not to his prisoners", that they might go "home"; or as De Dieu, in short, yet fully, expresses it, "that did not dismiss his prisoners home"; he not only cruelly and inhumanly put many to the sword, but such as surrendered, and were taken captives, he detained them in prison, and would not loose their bonds, but let them die there; which was an instance of great cruelty and inhumanity.

Verse 18

All the kings of the nations,.... Of other nations, besides those he governed, and even of those whom he had subdued, at least their ancestors, the greatest part of them however; for the word "all" does not always signify every individual, though by the repetition of it, it here bids fair for such a sense, there being but very few, or scarce any exceptions to this observation; for, on some account or another, both good and bad kings are interred in great state: even all of them lie in glory; in rich tombs and stately monuments, erected for the honour of them; and where they "sleep", as the word signifies, with their fathers, their ancestors, and are at rest, in the state of the dead, where they will continue to the resurrection: everyone in his own house; or grave, see Job 30:23 the same with his long home, Ecc 12:5 or the house of his world: in reference to which, the Targum paraphrases it by the same phrase here; and though their graves were not in their dwelling houses or palaces, yet often near them, and in their own country, and were what had been erected, or caused to be erected by them, in their lifetime.

Verse 19

But thou art cast out of thy grave,.... Or rather "from" it (d); that is, he was not suffered to be put into it, or to have a burial, as the following words show, at least not to be laid in the grave designed for him; though the Jews (e), who apply this to Nebuchadnezzar, have a fabulous story that he was taken out of his grave by his son, to confirm this prophecy; and which their commentators, Aben Ezra, Jarchi, Kimchi, and Abendana, tell in this manner: that when Nebuchadnezzar was driven from men, and was with the beasts of the field for seven years, the people made his son Evilmerodach king; but when Nebuchadnezzar came to his right mind, and returned to his palace at Babylon, and found his son upon the throne, he put him in prison, where he lay till Nebuchadnezzar died, when the people took him out to make him king; but he refused to be king, saying, he did not believe his father was dead; and that if he should come again, as before, and find him, he would kill him; upon which they took him out of his grave, to show him that he was dead: but the sense here is not that the king of Babylon should be taken out of his grave, after he was laid in it, but that he should be hindered from being put into it; which very likely was the case of Belshazzar. Like an abominable branch; cut off from a tree as useless and hurtful, and cast upon the ground, where it lies and rots, and is good for nothing, neither for fuel, nor anything else, but is neglected and despised of all: and as the raiment of those that are slain; in battle, which being rolled in blood, nobody cares to take up and wear, nor even touch; for such persons were accounted unclean by the ceremonial law, and by the touch of them uncleanness was contracted; and perhaps with a view to this the simile is used, to express the very mean and abject condition this monarch should be in: thrust through with a sword; which was added for explanation sake, to show in which way the persons were slain whose raiment is referred to; the clothes of such being stained with blood, when those that died by other means might not have their raiment so defiled. The word (f) rendered "thrust through", is only used in this place, and in Gen 45:17 where it is rendered "lade", or put on a burden; but, as the several Jewish commentators before mentioned observe (g), in the Arabic language it signifies to pierce or thrust through with sword or spear, and so it is used in the Arabic version of Joh 19:34, that go down to the stones of the pit; into which dead bodies after a battle are usually cast, and which have often stones at the bottom; and into which being cast, stones are also thrown over them: as a carcass trodden underfoot; which is frequently the case of those that fall in battle; and very probably was the case of Belshazzar, when slain by the Chaldeans, whose body in a tumult might be neglected and trodden upon, and afterwards have no other burial than that of a common soldier in a pit; and instead of having a sepulchral monument erected over him, as kings used to have, had nothing but a heap of stones thrown upon him. (d) "a sepulchro tuo", Gataker. (e) Seder Olam Rabba c. 28. fol. 81. (f) Strong's Concondance assigns two numbers to this word, 02943 and 02944. The word is the same in the Hebrew, differing only in the tense. This case is a Pual and the one in Genesis is a Qal. Wigrim's Englishman's Hebrew Concondance also has them in separate categories. There appears to be no good reason for this. Editor. (g) "confodit cum instrumentis, hasta, gladiis", Castel. col. 1546. So it is used in the Arabic version of Lam. iv. 9. and in the Chaldee language it signifies to pierce through and wound; as in the Targum on Jer. li. 4.

Verse 20

Thou shall not be joined with them in burial,.... The kings before mentioned; not that the sense is that he should not be interred in the same place they were, or lie in the same stately monuments they did, for that was never designed by him or others; but that he should not be buried in like manner, be embalmed as they, or have odours burned for him, or lie in such state and pomp, or have a "pyramid" or "mausoleum", or any rich monument, erected over him; unless this can be understood of his ancestors, the kings that were before him; and the sense be, that he should not have a burial with the kings of Babylon, or be inferred where they were, but, as before said, should be cast out, or be kept from the place of sepulture. The Targum is, "thou shall not be as one of them in the grave;'' shall not be like them, or equal to them, in the glory and pomp of a funeral, not having the same funeral rites; obsequies, and ornaments they have had. So the whore of Rome shall have no funeral, but the kings of the earth will eat her flesh, and burn her with fire Rev 17:16, because thou hast destroyed thy land; not only other lands and nations, but also his own, and the inhabitants of it, by his tyrannical government, by levies and exactions, by mulcts and fines, on various pretences: or, "hast corrupted, thy land" (g); which phrase is used of mystical Babylon, Rev 19:2 see also Rev 11:18 whose land or earth is the whole Romish jurisdiction, corrupted by her idolatries, and wasted and destroyed by the various methods used to drain away the substance thereof: and slain thy people; put them to death at pleasure, without any just cause, for trifling matters; which is often done by arbitrary princes. Jarchi and Kimchi apply this to Nebuchadnezzar's slaying the wise men of Babylon, because they could not tell him his dream, and the interpretation of it. It is true of antichrist slaying such, that would not worship his image, and receive his mark, Rev 13:10. The seed of evildoers shall never be renowned; or, "not for ever"; though they may have a name, and be very famous for a while, yet not always; in process of time their honour is laid in the dust; or, "shall not be called for ever" (h); their name and their memory shall not always last; their name shall be cut off, and their memory shall rot; they shall have none to keep up their name, and they shall not be spoken of with respect; such a seed of evildoers were Belshazzar and his family, who descended from Nebuchadnezzar and Evilmerodach, and were at once extinct, as follows: (g) "terram tuam corrupisti", Montanus, Cocceius, Junius, Tremellius, Piscator. (h) "non nominabitur in seculum", Forerius; "vocabitur", Pagninus, Montanus, Munster.

Verse 21

Prepare slaughter for his children,.... These words are directed to the Medes and Persians, to prepare instruments of slaughter, and make use of them; and prepare themselves for the slaughter of the whole royal family, Belshazzar and all his children. So it is threatened to Jezebel, or the Romish antichrist, that all her children should be killed with death, Rev 2:23, for the iniquity of their fathers; they imitating and following them in their sins, partaking of them, and filling up the measure of their iniquities: that they do not rise, nor possess the land; stand up and succeed him in the government of the land, as their inheritance: nor fill the face of the world with cities; as their ancestors had done, which were built by them to perpetuate their name and glory, and to keep the nations in awe subdued by them. The Targum renders it, "with enemies"; which is followed by Aben Ezra, Jarchi, and Kimchi; and so the Septuagint, Syriac, and Arabic versions, "with wars"; to the great disturbance of the peace of the world, and to the disquietude of the inhabitants of it; which is a great plague to the world, and a judgment in it.

Verse 22

For I will rise up against them, saith the Lord of hosts,.... That is, against the children of the Babylonish monarch; and therefore they shall not rise and possess the earth, and disturb it, since he who is the Lord of armies in heaven and earth, and has all power in both worlds, and has everything at his beck and command, will rise up, who seemed, as it were, asleep, and unconcerned about the affairs of this world, and will set himself against them, and exert his power in their destruction: and cut off from Babylon; the king of Babylon, and the inhabitants of it: the name; not of the city, which is mentioned long after, and still is; but of the king and his family: and remnant; his flesh, or those that were akin to him, as Kimchi interprets it: and son, and nephew; his son, and son's son as the Targum, and after that other Jewish writers; the whole family was destroyed with Belshazzar, after whom none of that race was ever heard of any more.

Verse 23

I will also make it a possession for the bittern,.... Instead of being possessed by any of the family of the king of Babylon. The "bittern" is a kind of water fowl, which, by putting its bill into mire, or a broken reed, is said to make a most horrible noise. Some think the "owl" is meant, which dwells in desolate and ruinous places; and others take it to be the "ospray", a sort of eagle that preys upon fish and ducks; according to Kimchi, the "tortoise" is meant; some will have it that the "beaver" or castor is intended; Jarchi understands it of the porcupine or "hedgehog"; and in the Arabic language this creature is called "kunphud", which is pretty near the Hebrew word "kippod", here used; to which Bochartus agrees; but, whatever creature is meant, the design is to show that Babylon should not be inhabited by men, but by birds or beasts of prey, or noxious animals; and so mystical Babylon is said to be a cage of every unclean and hateful bird, Rev 18:2, and pools of water; Babylon being situated in a marshy ground, and by the river Euphrates; and when that river was turned by Cyrus (i), and afterwards its banks neglected, in course of time the water overflowed the place where the city was, and all about it, and so easily came to be what is here predicted it should; see Rev 18:21, and I will sweep it with the besom of destruction, saith the Lord of hosts; and so clear it at once of all its inhabitants, wealth, and riches, and entirely remove its large walls and stately buildings, no more to be seen, just as a house is swept clean of all its dust; intimating, that this superb city, and all belonging to it, should be reduced to dust, and be as easily swept away as dust is with a besom. The word for "sweep", and a "besom", is only used in this place, and has this signification in the Arabic language; it is said in the Talmud (k), that the Rabbins knew not the meaning of this word, till they heard an Arabian girl say to her fellow servant, "take this besom, and sweep the house.'' expressing the word here used. (i) Xenophon. Cyropaedia, l. 7. c. 23. (k) Roshhashana, fol. 26. 2. Megilla, fol. 18. 1.

Verse 24

The Lord of hosts hath sworn, saying,.... The Septuagint only read, "these things saith the Lord of hosts"; for, as Kimchi on the place observes, his word is his oath; but for the comfort of his people, and for the confirmation either of the prophecies concerning the fall of Babylon, or of the following concerning the destruction of the Assyrian monarchy, or both, he adds his oath to his word, to show that the sentence passed in his mind, and now expressed, was irrevocable: surely as I have thought, so shall it come to pass; as he had shaped and schemed it, and drew the form and image in his own mind, or fixed and settled it there, so should it be done in due time, as every thing is that is determined by the Lord; and this shows that nothing is casual, or comes by chance, but everything as it is purposed of God; and that as everything comes to pass which he has resolved, so every such resolution proceeds from thought, and is the produce of the highest wisdom and prudence: and as I have purposed, so it shall stand; or "counselled" (l); within himself, for he does all things according to the counsel of his will; and which always stands firm, sure, and unalterable, let what devices soever be in the heart of man. (l) "consului", Montanus, Cocceius; "consilium inivi", Junius & Tremellius; "consultavi", Piscator.

Verse 25

That I will break the Assyrian in my land,.... This was his thought, counsel, purpose, and decree; which must be understood either of the king of Babylon, as before, called the Assyrian; as the king of Babylon seems to be called the king of Assyria in Ch2 33:11, but then his destruction was not in the land of Israel, or on the mountains of Judea, as is here predicted; or rather, therefore, this is a new prophecy, or a return to what is foretold in the tenth chapter Isa 10:1 concerning Sennacherib and his army, and the destruction of it; which, coming to pass long before the destruction of Babylon, is mentioned for the comfort of God's people, as a pledge and assurance of the latter: though some think that it was now past, and is observed to strengthen the faith of the Jews, with respect to the preceding prediction, and read the words thus, as "in breaking the Assyrian in my land"; and then the sense is, what I have thought, purposed, and sworn to, to come to pass, concerning the fall of Babylon, shall as surely be accomplished, and you may depend upon it, as I have broke the Assyrian army in my land before your eyes, of which ye yourselves are witnesses. Some think that Gog and Magog are intended by the Assyrian, of whom it is predicted that they should fall upon the mountains of Israel, as here, Eze 39:4 it may be, that as the king of Babylon was a type of the Romish antichrist in the preceding prophecy, the Assyrian here may represent the Turks, who now possess the land of Israel, and shall be destroyed: and upon my mountains tread him under foot; the mountainous part of Judea, particularly the mountains which were round about Jerusalem, where the Assyrian army under Sennacherib was, when besieged by him, and where they fell and were trodden under foot; and now the Lord may be said to break the Assyrian troops, and trample upon them, because it was not only done according to his will, but without the use of men, by an angel that was sent immediately from heaven, and destroyed the whole host, Kg2 19:35, there shall his yoke depart from off them, and his burden depart from off their shoulders: meaning, that hereby the siege of Jerusalem would be broken up, and the city rid of such a troublesome enemy; and the parts adjacent eased of the burden of having such a numerous army quartered upon them; and the whole land freed from the subjection of this monarch, and from paying tribute to him. The same is said in Isa 10:27. This, in the Talmud (m), is interpreted of Sennacherib. (m) T. Bab. Sanhedrin, fol. 94. 2.

Verse 26

This is the purpose that is purposed upon the whole earth, &c. Or, "counsel that is counselled". The Targum is, "all the inhabitants of the earth;'' and the Septuagint version, "the whole world", meaning the Assyrian empire, and all states depending on it; as the Roman empire is called, Luk 2:1 for this purpose respects not the end of the world, and the judgment of it at the last day, as some have thought; but the preceding prophecy, purpose, or counsel, concerning breaking and trampling under foot the Assyrians, and delivering the Jews from subjection to them: and this is the hand that is stretched out upon all the nations; of which the Assyrian army consisted, or which made up the Assyrian monarchy, or depended on it, and fell with it. "Purpose" denotes the counsel, will, and decree of God, about this business; and "hand" the execution of it. The Targum renders it "power"; so "hand" and "counsel" go together in Act 4:28. The Targum is "on all kingdoms.''

Verse 27

For the Lord of hosts hath purposed,.... What is before declared, the fall of Babylon, and the destruction of the Assyrian, and everything else that comes to pass in this world; there is nothing comes to pass but he has purposed, and everything he has purposed does come to pass: and who shall disannul it? not the most powerful monarch, or most powerful armies, or the most refined councils of men, or the greatest politicians on earth: and his hand is stretched out, and who shall turn it back? or aside, from giving the blow it is designed to give; no power on earth is equal to it.

Verse 28

In the year that King Ahaz died was this burden. The following heavy prophecy, concerning the destruction of the Philistines; whether it was delivered out before or after his death is not certain. Here some begin the "fifteenth" chapter Isa 15:1, and not improperly; henceforward prophecies are delivered out under another reign, as before under Uzziah, Jotham, and Ahaz, now under Hezekiah. This, according to Bishop Usher, was A. M. 3278 and before the Christian era 726. , and not improperly; henceforward prophecies are delivered out under another reign, as before under Uzziah, Jotham, and Ahaz, now under Hezekiah. This, according to Bishop Usher, was A. M. 3278 and before the Christian era 726. Isaiah 14:29 isa 14:29 isa 14:29 isa 14:29Rejoice not thou, whole Palestina,.... The land of the Philistines; the inhabitants of Palestine are meant, who rejoiced at the death of Uzziah, who was too powerful for them, and during the reign of Ahaz, of whom they had the better; and, now he was dead, they hoped things would still be more favourable to them, since a young prince, Hezekiah, succeeded him; but they would find, by sad experience, that they had no occasion to rejoice in these changes: "whole Palestine" is mentioned, because it was divided into five districts or lordships, over which there were five lords, Jos 13:3, Sa1 6:4 and as they were all rejoicing in their late successes in Ahaz's time, and in hopes of still greater, so they would all suffer in the calamity hereafter threatened: because the rod of him that smote thee is broken: meaning not Ahaz, for be did not smite the Philistines, but was smitten by them, for they invaded his country, and took many of his cities; see Ch2 28:18 but rather Uzziah, who broke down the walls of their cities, and built others, Ch2 26:6 wherefore they rejoiced at his death; and their joy continued during the reigns of Jotham and Ahaz, and was increased at the death of Ahaz, a new and young king being placed on the throne. Some understand this of the breaking of the Assyrian, the rod of God's anger, Isa 14:25 by whom the Philistines had been smitten, and therefore rejoiced at his ruin; and to this the Targum seems to incline, paraphrasing it thus, "because the government is broken, whom ye served.'' Such that interpret in this way, by the "serpent" after mentioned understand Tilgathpilneser king of Assyria, whose successors were more troublesome to the Philistines than he; and by the "cockatrice" Sennacherib; and by the "fiery flying serpent" Nebuchadnezzar. Cocceius thinks that the sense of the prophecy is, that the Philistines should not rejoice at the sceptre being taken away from the Jews, and they being carried captive into Babylon, since it would not be to their advantage; for after Nebuchadnezzar and his sons, meant by the "serpent", should come the Medes and Persians, signified by the "cockatrice": and after them the Macedonians or Greeks, designed by the "flying fiery serpent", under Alexander, who should "kill" their "root", take Tyre their metropolis, at the siege of which was a famine; and then "slay their remnant", the city of Gaza, the last of their cities, whose inhabitants he slew; but the first sense of the prophecy, as it is most common, so most easy and natural: for out of the serpent's root shall come forth a cockatrice: that is, from the posterity, of Uzziah king of Judah, who greatly annoyed the Philistines, for which reason he is compared to a "serpent", should arise Hezekiah compared to a "cockatrice", because he would be, and he was, more harmful and distressing to them; see Kg2 18:8, and his fruit shall be a fiery flying serpent; not the fruit of the cockatrice, but of the serpent; and intends the same as before, Hezekiah, likened to such a creature, because of the fury and swiftness with which he was to come, and did come, against the Philistines, and the hurt he did to them: the "serpent" to which he is compared is called "fiery", or "burning", because it inflames where it bites; of which see Num 21:6 and "flying", not because it has wings, though some serpents are said to have them; but because, when it leaps or darts upon a man, it is with such swiftness, that it seems to fly; the serpent called "acontias", or "serpens jaculus", is here alluded to. The Targum applies the passage to the Messiah, thus, "for out of the children's children of Jesse shall come forth the Messiah, and his works shall be among you as a flying serpent.''

Verse 29

And the firstborn of the poor shall feed,.... That is, the Jews, who were brought very low in the times of Ahaz, reduced to the greatest straits and difficulties; for so the word "firstborn" may signify the chief, or those who were of all the poorest, and in the greatest distress; these, in the times of Hezekiah, shall enjoy abundance of good things, and under his gentle government shall feed like a flock of sheep in good pastures; this signifying, that though he should be like a serpent, harmful to his enemies, yet should be kind and tender unto, and take great care of his own subjects, and under whom they should have great plenty and prosperity: and the needy shall lie down in safety; like a flock of sheep, secure from beasts of prey, under the care of a faithful and vigilant shepherd; this shows that the Jews should not only have plenty of good things, but should live in the greatest security, without fear of any enemy, or danger from them: and I will kill thy root with famine; this is said to Palestine, compared to a tree, whose root is dried up for want of moisture, and so dies; and the meaning is, that a sore famine should rage in their country, and utterly destroy them: and he shall slay thy remnant: that is, Hezekiah should slay with the sword those that were left of the famine.

Verse 30

Howl, O gate,.... Or gates of the cities of Palestine; the magistrates that sat there to execute judgment, or the people that passed through there; or because now obliged to open to their enemies; wherefore, instead of rejoicing, they are called to howling: cry, O city; or cities, the several cities of the land, as well as their chief, because of the destruction coming upon them. The Targum is, "howl over thy gates, and cry over thy cities;'' or concerning them: thou, whole Palestina, art dissolved; or "melted"; through fear of enemies coming upon them; or it may design the entire overthrow and dissolution of their state; for there shall come from the north a smoke; a numerous army, raising a dust like smoke as they move along, and coming with great "swiftness", and very annoying. Some understand this of the Chaldean army under Nebuchadnezzar coming from Babylon, which lay north of Judea; so Aben Ezra; to which agrees Jer 47:1 but most interpret it of Hezekiah's army, which came from Judea: which, Kimchi says, lay north to the land of the Philistines. Cocceius is of opinion that the Roman army is here meant, which came from the north against Judea, called whole Palestine; which country came into the hands of the Jews after the taking of Tyre and Gaza by the Greeks, and therefore the sanhedrim, which sat in the gate, and the city of Jerusalem, are called upon to howl and cry. But the first of these senses seems best, since the utter destruction of Palestine was by the Chaldean army under Nebuchadnezzar; and so the prophecy from the time of Hezekiah, with which it begins, is carried on unto the entire dissolution of this country by the Babylonians. And none shall be alone in his appointed times; when the times appointed are come, for the gathering, mustering, and marching of the army, whether Hezekiah's or the Chaldean, none shall stay at home; all will voluntarily and cheerfully flock unto it, and enlist themselves; nor will they separate or stray from it, but march on unanimously, and courageously engage the enemy, till the victory is obtained. Aben Ezra understands this of the Philistines, that they should not be able to abide alone in their palaces and houses, because of the smoke that should come in unto them.

Verse 31

What shall one then answer the messengers of the nation?.... Or nations, of any of the nations. Not the messengers sent to Hezekiah, Isa 39:1 but rather such as were sent to him, to congratulate him upon his victory over the Philistines; or any others that were sent, and came from other nations, that inquired about these matters, and the answer returned is, That the Lord hath founded Zion; and not Hezekiah; he had given his people victory over their enemies, and protected, defended, and established them, and therefore ought to have all the glory: and the poor of his people shall trust in it; or, "betake themselves to it"; as to a place of safety, being founded by the Lord, and under his protection. So the church of God, which often goes by the name of Zion in Scripture, is of his founding; he has laid Christ as the foundation of it, and such as are sensible of their spiritual poverty, misery, and danger, trust in him; not in Zion, but in the foundation God has laid in Zion, or built his church upon. Next: Isaiah Chapter 15

Verse 3

The song of the redeemed is a song concerning the fall of the king of Babel. Isa 14:3, Isa 14:4. Instead of the hiphil hinniach (to let down) of Isa 14:1, we have here, as in the original passage, Deu 25:19, the form hēniach, which is commonly used in the sense of quieting, or procuring rest. עצב is trouble which plagues (as עמל is trouble which oppresses), and rōgez restlessness which wears out with anxious care (Job 3:26, cf., Eze 12:18). The assimilated min before the two words is pronounced mĭ, with a weak reduplication, instead of mē, as elsewhere, before ח, ה, and even before ר (Sa1 23:28; Sa2 18:16). In the relative clause עבּד־בך אשר, אשר is not the Hebrew casus adverb. answering to the Latin ablative qu servo te usi sunt; not do בך ... אשר belong to one another in the sense of quo, as in Deu 21:3, qu (vitul); but it is regarded as an acc. obj. according to Exo 1:14 and Lev 25:39, qu'on t'a fait servir, as in Num 32:5, qu'on donne la terre (Luzzatto). When delivered from such a yoke of bondage, Israel would raise a mâshâl. According to its primary and general meaning, mâshâl signifies figurative language, and hence poetry generally, more especially that kind of proverbial poetry which loves the emblematical, and, in fact, any artistic composition that is piquant in its character; so that the idea of what is satirical or defiant may easily be associated with it, as in the passage before us. The words are addressed to the Israel of the future in the Israel of the present, as in Isa 12:1. The former would then sing, and say as follows. "How hath the oppressor ceased! The place of torture ceased! Jehovah hath broken the rod of the wicked, the ruler's staff, which cmote nations in wrath with strokes without ceasing subjugated nations wrathfully with hunting than nevers stays." Not one of the early translators ever thought of deriving the hap. leg. madhebâh from the Aramaean dehab (gold), as Vitringa, Aurivillius, and Rosenmller have done. The former have all translated the word as if it were marhēbâh (haughty, violent treatment), as corrected by J. D. Michaelis, Doederlein, Knobel, and others. But we may arrive at the same result without altering a single letter, if we take דּאב as equivalent to דּהב, דּוּב, to melt or pine away, whether we go back to the kal or to the hiphil of the verb, and regard the Mem as used in a material or local sense. We understand it, according to madmenah (dunghill) in Isa 25:10, as denoting the place where they were reduced to pining away, i.e., as applied to Babylon as the house of servitude where Israel had been wearied to death. The tyrant's sceptre, mentioned in Isa 14:5, is the Chaldean world-power regarded as concentrated in the king of Babel (cf., shēbet in Num 24:17). This tyrant's sceptre smote nations with incessant blows and hunting: maccath is construed with macceh, the derivative of the same verb; and murdâph, a hophal noun (as in Isa 9:1; Isa 29:3), with rodeh, which is kindred in meaning. Doederlein's conjecture (mirdath), which has been adopted by most modern commentators, is quite unnecessary. Unceasing continuance is expressed first of all with bilti, which is used as a preposition, and followed by sârâh, a participial noun like câlâh, and then with b'li, which is construed with the finite verb as in Gen 31:20; Job 41:18; for b'li châsâk is an attributive clause: with a hunting which did not restrain itself, did not stop, and therefore did not spare. Nor is it only Israel and other subjugated nations that now breathe again.

Verse 7

"The whole earth rests, is quiet: they break forth into singing. Even the cypresses rejoice at thee, the cedars of Lebanon: 'Since thou hast gone to sleep, no one will come up to lay the axe upon us.'" The preterites indicate inchoatively the circumstances into which the whole earth has now entered. The omission of the subject in the case of pâtz'chu (they break forth) gives the greatest generality to the jubilant utterances: pâtzach rinnâh (erumpere gaudio) is an expression that is characteristic of Isaiah alone (e.g., Isa 44:23; Isa 49:13); and it is a distinctive peculiarity of the prophet to bring in the trees of the forest, as living and speaking beings, to share in the universal joy (cf., Isa 55:12). Jerome supposes the trees to be figuratively employed here for the "chiefs of the nations" (principes gentium). But this disposition to allegorize not only destroys the reality of the contents, but the spirit of the poetry also. Cypresses and cedars rejoice because of the treatment which they received from the Chaldean, who made use of the almost imperishable wood of both of them for ornamental buildings, for his siege apparatus, and for his fleets, and even for ordinary ships - as Alexander, for example, built himself a fleet of cypress-wood, and the Syrian vessels had masts of cedar. Of the old cedars of Lebanon, there are hardly thirty left in the principle spot where they formerly grew. Gardner Wilkinson (1843) and Hooker the botanist (1860) estimated the whole number at about four hundred; and according to the conclusion which the latter drew from the number of concentric rings and other signs, not one of them is more than about five hundred years old. (Note: See Wilkinson's paper in the Athenaeum (London, Noverse 1862).)

Verse 9

But whilst it has become so quiet on earth, there is the most violent agitation in the regions below. "The kingdom of the dead below is all in uproar on account of thee, to meet thy coming; it stirreth up the shades for thee, all the he-goats of the earth; it raiseth up from their throne-seats all the kings of the nations." The notion of Hades, notwithstanding the mythological character which it had assumed, was based upon the double truth, that what a man has been, and the manner in which he has lived on this side the grave, are not obliterated on the other side, but are then really brought to light, and that there is an immaterial self-formation of the soul, in which all that a man has become under certain divinely appointed circumstances, by his own self-determination, is, as it were, reflected in a mirror, and that in a permanent form. This psychical image, to which the dead body bears the same relation as the shattered mould to a cast, is the shade-like corporeality of the inhabitants of Hades, in which they appear essentially though spiritually just as they were on this side the grave. This is the deep root of what the prophet has here expressed in a poetical form; for it is really a mâshâl that he has interwoven with his prophecy here. All Hades is overwhelmed with excitement and wonder, now that the king of Babel, that invincible ruler of the world, who, if not unexpected altogether, was not expected so soon, as actually approaching. From עורר onwards, Sheol, although a feminine, might be the subject; in which case the verb would simply have reverted from the feminine to the radical masculine form. But it is better to regard the subject as neuter; a nescio quid, a nameless power. The shades are suddenly seized with astonishment, more especially the former leaders (leading goats or bell-wethers) of the herds of nations, so that, from sheer amazement, they spring up from their seats.

Verse 10

And how do they greet this lofty new-comer? "They all rise up and say to thee, Art thou also made weak like us? art thou become like us?" This is all that the shades say; what follows does not belong to them. The pual chullâh (only used here), "to be made sickly, or powerless," signifies to be transposed into the condition of the latter, viz., the Repahim (a word which also occurs in the Phoenician inscriptions, from רפא = רפה, to be relaxed or weary), since the life of the shades is only a shadow of life (cf., εἴδωλα ἄκικυς, and possibly also καμόντες in Homer, when used in the sense of those who are dying, exhausted and prostrate with weakness). And in Hades we could not expect anything more than this expression of extreme amazement. For why should they receive their new comrade with contempt or scorn? From Isa 14:11 onwards, the singers of the mashal take up the song again.

Verse 11

"Thy pomp is cast down to the region of the dead, the noise of thy harps: maggots are spread under thee, and they that cover thee are worms." From the book of Daniel we learn the character of the Babylonian music; it abounded in instruments, some of which were foreign. Maggots and worms (a bitter sarcasm) now take the place of the costly artistic Babylonian rugs, which once formed the pillow and counterpane of the distinguished corpse. יצּע might be a third pers. hophal (Ges. 71); but here, between perfects, it is a third pers. pual, like yullad in Isa 9:5. Rimmâh, which is preceded by the verb in a masculine and to a certain extent an indifferent form (Ges. 147, a), is a collective name for small worms, in any mass of which the individual is lost in the swarm. The passage is continued with איך (on which, as a catchword of the mashal, see at Isa 1:21).

Verse 12

"How art thou fallen from the sky, thou star of light, sun of the dawn, hurled down to the earth, thou that didst throw down nations from above?" הילל is here the morning star (from hâlal, to shine, resolved from hillel, after the form מאן, Jer 13:10, סעף, Psa 119:113, or rather attaching itself as a third class to the forms היכל, עירם: compare the Arabic sairaf, exchanger; saikal, sword-cleaner). It derives its name in other ancient languages also from its striking brilliancy, and is here called ben-shachar (sun of the dawn), just as in the classical mythology it is called son of Eos, from the fact that it rises before the sun, and swims in the morning light as if that were the source of its birth. (Note: It is singular, however, that among the Semitic nations the morning star is not personified as a male (Heōsphoros or Phōsphoros), but as a female (Astarte, see at Isa 17:8), and that it is called Nâghâh, Ashtoreth, Zuhara, but never by a name derived from hâlal; whilst the moon is regarded as a male deity (Sin), and in Arabic hilâl signifies the new moon, which might be called ben- shacar (son of the dawn), from the fact that, from the time when it passes out of the invisibility of its first phase, it is seen at sunrise, and is as it were born out of the dawn.) Lucifer, as a name given to the devil, was derived from this passage, which the fathers (and lately Stier) interpreted, without any warrant whatever, as relating to the apostasy and punishment of the angelic leaders. The appellation is a perfectly appropriate one for the king of Babel, on account of the early date of the Babylonian culture, which reached back as far as the grey twilight of primeval times, and also because of its predominant astrological character. The additional epithet chōlēsh ‛al-gōyim is founded upon the idea of the influxus siderum: (Note: In a similar manner, the sun-god (San) is called the "conqueror of the king's enemies," "breaker of opposition," etc., on the early Babylonian monuments (see G. Rawlinson, The Five Great Monarchies, i. 160).) cholesh signifies "overthrowing" or laying down (Exo 17:13), and with ‛al, "bringing defeat upon;" whilst the Talmud (b. Sabbath 149b) uses it in the sense of projiciens sortem, and thus throws light upon the cholesh (= purah, lot) of the Mishnah. A retrospective glance is now cast at the self-deification of the king of Babylon, in which he was the antitype of the devil and the type of antichrist (Dan 11:36; Th2 2:4), and which had met with its reward.

Verse 13

"And thou, thou hast said in thy heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God, and sit down on the mount of the assembly of gods in the corner of the north. I will ascend to the heights of the clouds, I will make myself like the Most High. Nevertheless, thou wilt be cast down into the region of the dead, into the corner of the pit." An antithetical circumstantial clause commences with veattah, just as in Isa 14:19, "whilst thou," or "whereas thou." The har hammōēd (mount of assembly) cannot be Zion, as is assumed by Schegg and others, who are led astray by the parallel in Psa 48:3, which has been entirely misunderstood, and has no bearing upon this passage at all. Zion was neither a northern point of the earth, nor was it situated on the north of Jerusalem. The prophet makes the king of Babylon speak according to the general notion of his people, who had not the seat of the Deity in the midst of them, as the Israelites had, but who placed it on the summit of the northern mountains, which were lost in the clouds, just as the Hindus place it on the fabulous mountains of Kailâsa, which lie towards the north beyond the Himalayas (Lassen, i. 34ff.). ירכתים (with an aspirated כ in a loosely closed syllable) are the two sides into which a thing parts, the two legs of an angle, and then the apex at which the legs separate. And so here, צפון ירכּתי (with an unaspirated Caph in a triply closed syllable) is the uttermost extremity of the north, from which the northern mountains stretch fork-like into the land, and yarcethe-bor the interior of the pit into which its two walls slope, and from which it unfolds or widens. All the foolhardy purposes of the Chaldean are finally comprehended in this, "I will make myself like the Most High;" just as the Assyrians, according to Ctesias, and the Persians, according to the Persae of Aeschylus, really called their king God, and the Sassanidae call themselves bag, Theos, upon coins and inscriptions ('eddammeh is hithpael, equivalent to 'ethdammeh, which the usual assimilation of the preformative Tav: Ges. 34, 2, b). By the אך in Psa 48:14, the high-flying pride of the Chaldean is contrasted with his punishment, which hurls him down into the lowest depths. אך, which was originally affirmative, and then restrictive (as rak was originally restrictive and then affirmative), passes over here into an adversative, just as in Psa 49:16; Job 13:15 (a change seen still more frequently in אכן); nevertheless thou wilt be hurled down; nothing but that will occur, and not what you propose. The prophetic tūrad is language that neither befits the inhabitants of Hades, who greet his advent, nor the Israel singing the mashal; but the words of Israel have imperceptibly passed into words of the prophet, who still sees in the distance, and as something future, what the mashal commemorates as already past.

Verse 16

The prophet then continues in the language of prediction. "They that see thee look, considering thee, look at thee thoughtfully: Is this the man that set the earth trembling, and kingdoms shaking? that made the world a wilderness, and destroyed its cities, and did not release its prisoners (to their) home?" The scene is no longer in Hades (Knobel, Umbreit). Those who are speaking thus have no longer the Chaldean before them as a mere shade, but as an unburied corpse that has fallen into corruption. As tēbēl is feminine, the suffixes in Isa 14:17 must refer, according to a constructio ad sensum, to the world as changed into a wilderness (midbâr). Pâthach, to open, namely locks and fetters; here, with baithâh, it is equivalent to releasing or letting go (syn. shillēach, Jer 50:33). By the "prisoners" the Jewish exiles are principally intended; and it was their release that had never entered the mind of the king of Babylon.

Verse 18

The prophet, whose own words now follow the words of the spectators, proceeds to describe the state in which the tyrant lies, and which calls for such serious reflections. "All the kings of the nations, they are all interred in honour, every one in his house: but thou art cast away far from thy sepulchre like a shoot hurled away, clothed with slain, with those pierced through with the sword, those that go down to the stones of the pit; like a carcase trodden under feet." Every other king was laid out after his death "in his house" (b'bēthō), i.e. within the limits of his own palace; but the Chaldean lay far away from the sepulchre that was apparently intended for him. The מן in מקברך signifies procul ab, as in Num 15:24; Pro 20:3. He lies there like nētzer nith‛âb, i.e., like a branch torn off from the tree, that has withered and become offensive, or rather (as neetzer does not mean a branch, but a shoot) like a side-shoot that has been cut off the tree and thrown away with disgust as ugly, useless, and only a hindrance to the regular growth of the tree (possibly also an excrescence); nith‛âb (cast away) is a pregnant expression, signifying "cast away with disgust." The place where he lies is the field of battle. A vaticinium post eventum would be expressed differently from this, as Luzzatto has correctly observed. For what Seder 'Olam says - namely, that Nebuchadnezzar's corpse was taken out of the grave by Evilmerodach, or as Abravanel relates it, by the Medo-Persian conquerors - is merely a conclusion drawn from the passage before us, and would lead us to expect הוצת rather than השלכת. It is a matter of indifference, so far as the truth of the prophecy is concerned, whether it was fulfilled in the person of Nebuchadnezzar I, or of that second Nebuchadnezzar who gave himself out as a son of Nabonet, and tried to restore the freedom of Babylon. The scene which passes before the mind of the prophet is the field of battle. To clear this they made a hole and throw stones (abnē-bor, stones of the pit) on the top, without taking the trouble to shovel in the earth; but the king of Babylon is left lying there, like a carcase that is trampled under foot, and deserves nothing better than to be trampled under foot (mūbâs, part. hoph. of būs, conculcare). They do not even think him worth throwing into a hole along with the rest of the corpses.

Verse 20

"Thou art not united with them in burial, for thou hast destroyed thy land, murdered thy people: the seed of evil-doers will not be named for ever." In this way is vengeance taken for the tyrannical manner in which he has oppressed and exhausted his land, making his people the involuntary instruments of his thirst for conquest, and sacrificing them as victims to that thirst. For this reason he does not meet with the same compassion as those who have been compelled to sacrifice their lives in his service. And it is not only all over for ever with him, but it is so with his dynasty also. The prophet, the messenger of the penal justice of God, and the mouthpiece of that Omnipotence which regulates the course of history, commands this.

Verse 21

"Prepare a slaughter-house for his sons, because of the iniquity of their fathers! They shall not rise and conquer lands, and fill the face of the earth with cities." They exhortation is addressed to the Medes, if the prophet had any particular persons in his mind at all. After the nocturnal storming of Babylon by the Medes, the new Babylonian kingdom and royal house which had been established by Nabopolassar vanished entirely from history. The last shoot of the royal family of Nabopolassar was slain as a child of conspirators. The second Nebuchadnezzar deceived the people (as Darius says in the great inscription of Behistan), declaring, "I am Nabukudrac ara the son of Nabunita." בּל (used poetically for אל, like בּלי in Isa 14:6 for לא) expresses a negative wish (as pen does a negative intention): Let no Babylonian kingdom ever arise again! Hitzig corrects ערים into עיּים (heaps of ruins), Ewald into עריצים (tyrants), Knobel into רעים, and Meier into עדים, which are said to signify conflicts, whilst Maurer will not take ערים in the sense of cities, but of enemies. But there is no necessity for this at all. Nimrod, the first founder of a Babylonio-Assyrian kingdom, built cities to strengthen his monarchy. The king of Asshur built cities for the Medes, for the purpose of keeping them better in check. And it is to this building of cities, as a support to despotism, that the prophet here refers.

Verse 22

Thus far the prophet has spoken in the name of God. But the prophecy closes with a word of God Himself, spoken through the prophet. "And I will rise up against them, saith Jehovah of hosts, and root out in Babel name and remnant, sprout and shoot, saith Jehovah. And make it the possession of hedgehogs and marshes of water, and sweep it away with the bosom of destruction, saith Jehovah of hosts." שם ושאר and נין ונכד are two pairs of alliterative proverbial words, and are used to signify "the whole, without exception" (compare the Arabic expression "Kiesel und Kies," "flint and pebble," in the sense of "altogether:" Nldecke, Poesie der alten Araber, p. 162). Jehovah rises against the descendants of the king of Babylon, and exterminates Babylon utterly, root and branch. The destructive forces, which Babylon has hitherto been able to control by raising artificial defences, are now let loose; and the Euphrates, left without a dam, lays the whole region under water. Hedgehogs now take the place of men, and marshes the place of palaces. The kippod occurs in Isa 34:11 and Zep 2:14, in the company of birds; but according to the derivation of the word and the dialects, it denotes the hedgehog, which possesses the power of rolling itself up (lxx ἔρημον ὥστε κατοικεῖν ἐχίνους), and which, although it can neither fly, nor climb with any peculiar facility, on account of its mode of walking, could easily get upon the knob of a pillar that had been thrown down (Zep 2:14). The concluding threat makes the mode of Babel's origin the omen of its end: the city of טיט, i.e., Babylon, which had been built for the most part of clay or brick-earth, would be strangely swept away. The pilpel טאטא (or טאטא, as Kimchi conjugates it in Michlol 150ab, and in accordance with which some codices and early editions read וטאטאתיה with double zere) belongs to the cognate root which is mentioned at Psa 42:5, with an opening ד, ט, ס (cf., Isa 27:8), and which signifies to drive or thrust away. מטאטא is that with which anything is driven out or swept away, viz., a broom. Jehovah treats Babylon as rubbish, and sweeps it away, destruction (hashmēd: an inf. absol. used as a substantive) serving Him as a broom.

Verse 24

There now follows, apparently out of all connection, another prophecy against Asshur. It is introduced here quite abruptly, like a fragment; and it is an enigma how it got here, and what it means here, though not an enigma without solution. This short Assyrian passage reads as follows. "Jehovah of hosts hath sworn, saying, Surely as I have thought, so shall it come to pass; and as I have purposed, that takes place; to break Asshur to pieces in my land, and upon my mountain will I tread him under foot: then his yoke departs from them, and his burden will depart from their neck. This is the purpose that is purposed over the whole earth; and this the hand that is stretched out over all nations. For Jehovah of hosts hath purposed, and who could bring it to nought? And His hand that is stretched out, who can turn it back?" It is evidently a totally different judicial catastrophe which is predicted here, inasmuch as the world-power upon which it falls is not called Babel or Chasdim, but Asshur, which cannot possibly be taken as a name for Babylon (Abravanel, Lowth, etc.). Babylon is destroyed by the Medes, whereas Asshur falls to ruin in the mountain-land of Jehovah, which it is seeking to subjugate - a prediction which was literally fulfilled. And only when this had taken place did a fitting occasion present itself for a prophecy against Babel, the heiress of the ruined Assyrian power. Consequently the two prophecies against Babel and Asshur form a hysteron-proteron as they stand here. The thought which occasioned this arrangement, and which it is intended to set forth, is expressed by Jeremiah in Jer 50:18-19, "Behold, I will punish the king of Babylon and his land, as I have punished the king of Assyria." The one event was a pledge of the other. At a time when the prophecy against Assyria had actually been fulfilled, the prophet attached it to the still unfulfilled prophecy against Babylon, to give a pledge of the fulfilment of the latter. This was the pedestal upon which the Massâh Bâbel was raised. And it was doubly suited for this, on account of its purely epilogical tone from Isa 14:26 onwards.

Verse 28

This is one of the prophecies the date of which is fixed in Isa 14:28. "In the year of the death of king Ahaz the following oracle was uttered." "The year of the death of king Aha"Z was (as in Isa 6:1) the year in which the death of Ahaz was to take place. In that year the Philistines still remained in those possessions, their hold of which was so shameful to Judah, and had not yet met with any humiliating retribution. But this year was the turning-point; for Hezekiah, the successor of Ahaz, not only recovered the cities that they had taken, but thoroughly defeated them in their own land (Kg2 18:8).

Verse 29

It was therefore in a most eventful and decisive year that Isaiah began to prophesy as follows. "Rejoice not so fully, O Philistia, that the rod which smote thee is broken to pieces; for out of the serpent's root comes forth a basilisk, and its fruit is a flying dragon." Shēbet maccēk, "the rod which smote thee" (not "of him that smote thee," which is not so appropriate), is the Davidic sceptre, which had formerly kept the Philistines in subjection under David and Solomon, and again in more recent times since the reign of Uzziah. This sceptre was now broken to pieces, for the Davidic kingdom had been brought down by the Syro-Ephraimitish war, and had not been able to recover itself; and so far as its power over the surrounding nations was concerned, it had completely fallen to pieces. Philistia was thoroughly filled with joy in consequence, but this joy was all over now. The power from which Philistia had escaped was a common snake (nâchâsh), which had been either cut to pieces, or had died out down to the very roots. But out of this root, i.e., out of the house of David, which had been reduced to the humble condition of its tribal house, there was coming forth a zepha‛, a basilisk (regulus, as Jerome and other early translators render it: see at Isa 11:8); and this basilisk, which is dangerous and even fatal in itself, as soon as it had reached maturity, would bring forth a winged dragon as its fruit. The basilisk is Hezekiah, and the flying dragon is the Messiah (this is the explanation given by the Targum); or, what is the same thing, the former is the Davidic government of the immediate future, the latter the Davidic government of the ultimate future. The figure may appear an inappropriate one, because the serpent is a symbol of evil; but it is not a symbol of evil only, but of a curse also, and a curse is the energetic expression of the penal justice of God. And it is as the executor of such a curse in the form of a judgment of God upon Philistia that the Davidic king is here described in a threefold climax as a snake or serpent. The selection of this figure may possibly have also been suggested by Gen 49:17; for the saying of Jacob concerning Dan was fulfilled in Samson, the sworn foe of the Philistines.

Verse 30

The coming Davidic king is peace for Israel, but for Philistia death. "And the poorest of the poor will feed, and needy ones lie down in peace; and I kill thy root through hunger, and he slays thy remnant." "The poorest of the poor:" becōrē dallim is an intensified expression for benē dallim, the latter signifying such as belong to the family of the poor, the former (cf., Job 18:13, mors dirissima) such as hold the foremost rank in such a family - a description of Israel, which, although at present deeply, very deeply, repressed and threatened on every side, would then enjoy its land in quietness and peace (Zep 3:12-13). In this sense ורעוּ is used absolutely; and there is no necessity for Hupfeld's conjecture (Ps. ii. 258), that we should read בכרי (in my pastures). Israel rises again, but Philistia perishes even to a root and remnant; and the latter again falls a victim on the one hand to the judgment of God (famine), and on the other to the punishment inflicted by the house of David. The change of persons in Isa 14:30 is no synallage; but the subject to yaharōg (slays) is the basilisk, the father of the flying dragon. The first strophe of the massah terminates here. It consists of eight lines, each of the two Masoretic Isa 14:29, Isa 14:30 containing four clauses.

Verse 31

The massah consists of two strophes. The first threatens judgment from Judah, and the second - of seven lines - threatens judgment from Asshur. "Howl, O gate! cry, O city! O Philistia, thou must melt entirely away; for from the north cometh smoke, and there is no isolated one among his hosts." שׁער, which is a masculine everywhere else, is construed here as a feminine, possibly in order that the two imperfects may harmonize; for there is nothing to recommend Luzzatto's suggestion, that שׁער should be taken as an accusative. The strong gates of the Philistian cities (Ashdod and Gaza), of world-wide renown, and the cities themselves, shall lift up a cry of anguish; and Philistia, which has hitherto been full of joy, shall melt away in the heat of alarm (Isa 13:7, nâmōg, inf. abs. niph.; on the form itself, compare Isa 59:13): for from the north there comes a singing and burning fire, which proclaims its coming afar off by the smoke which it produces; in other words, an all-destroying army, out of whose ranks not one falls away from weariness or self-will (cf., Isa 5:27), that is to say, an army without a gap, animated throughout with one common desire. (מועד, after the form מושב, the mass of people assembled at an appointed place, or mō'ed, Jos 8:14; Sa1 20:35, and for an appointed end.)

Verse 32

To understand Isa 14:32, which follows here, nothing more is needed than a few simple parenthetical thoughts, which naturally suggest themselves. This one desire was the thirst for conquest, and such a desire could not possibly have only the small strip of Philistian coast for its object; but the conquest of this was intended as the means of securing possession of other countries on the right hand and on the left. The question arose, therefore, How would Judah fare with the fire which was rolling towards it from the north? For the very fact that the prophet of Judah was threatening Philistia with this fire, presupposed that Judah itself would not be consumed by it. And this is just what is expressed in Isa 14:32 : "And what answer do the messengers of the nations bring? That Jehovah hath founded Zion, and that the afflicted of His people are hidden therein." "The messengers of the nations" (maleacē goi): goi is to be taken in a distributive sense, and the messengers to be regarded either as individuals who have escaped from the Assyrian army, which was formed of contingents from many nations, or else (as we should expect pelitē in that case, instead of mal'acē) messengers from the neighbouring nations, who were sent to Jerusalem after the Assyrian army had perished in front of the city, to ascertain how the latter had fared. And they all reply as if with one mouth (yaaneh): Zion has stood unshaken, protected by its God; and the people of this God, the poor and despised congregation of Jehovah (cf., Zac 11:7), are, and know that they are, concealed in Zion. The prophecy is intentionally oracular. Prophecy does not adopt the same tone to the nations as to Israel. Its language to the former is dictatorially brief, elevated with strong self-consciousness, expressed in lofty poetic strains, and variously coloured, according to the peculiarity of the nation to which the oracle refers. The following prophecy relating to Moab shows us very clearly, that in the prophet's view the judgment executed by Asshur upon Philistia would prepare the way for the subjugation of Philistia by the sceptre of David. By the wreck of the Assyrian world-power upon Jerusalem, the house of David would recover its old supremacy over the nations round about. And this really was the case. But the fulfilment was not exhaustive. Jeremiah therefore took up the prophecy of his predecessor again at the time of the Chaldean judgment upon the nations (Jer 47:1-7), but only the second strophe. The Messianic element of the first was continued by Zechariah (Zech 9).

Verse 1

This comes in here as the reason why Babylon must be overthrown and ruined, because God has mercy in store for his people, and therefore, 1. The injuries done to them must be reckoned for and revenged upon their persecutors. Mercy to Jacob will be wrath and ruin to Jacob's impenitent implacable adversaries, such as Babylon was. 2. The yoke of oppression which Babylon had long laid on their necks must be broken off, and they must be set at liberty; and, in order to this, the destruction of Babylon is as necessary as the destruction of Egypt and Pharaoh was to their deliverance out of that house of bondage. The same prediction is a promise to God's people and a threatening to their enemies, as the same providence has a bright side towards Israel and a black or dark side towards the Egyptians. Observe, I. The ground of these favours to Jacob and Israel - the kindness God had for them and the choice he had made of them (Isa 14:1): "The Lord will have mercy on Jacob, the seed of Jacob now captives in Babylon; he will make it to appear that he has compassion on them and has mercy in store for them, and that he will not contend for ever with them, but will yet choose them, will yet again return to them; though he has seemed for a time to refuse and reject them, he will show that they are his chosen people and that the election stands sure." However it may seem to us, God's mercy is not gone, nor does his promise fail, Psa 77:8. II. The particular favours he designed them. 1. He would bring them back to their native soil and air again: The Lord will set them in their own land, out of which they were driven. A settlement in the holy land, the land of promise, is a fruit of God's mercy, distinguishing mercy. 2. Many should be proselyted to their holy religion, and should return with them, induced to do so by the manifest tokens of God's favourable presence with them, the operations of God's grace in them, the operations of God's grace in them, and his providence for them: Strangers shall be joined with them, saying, We will go with you, for we have heard that God is with you, Zac 8:23. It adds much to the honour and strength of Israel when strangers are joined with them and there are added to the church many from without, Act 2:47. Let not the church's children be shy of strangers, but receive those whom God receives, and own those who cleave to the house of Jacob. 3. These proselytes should not only be a credit to their cause, but very helpful and serviceable to them in their return home: The people among whom they live shall take them, take care of them, take pity on them, and shall bring them to their place - as friends, loth to part with such good company - as servants, willing to do them all the good offices they could. God's people, wherever their lot is cast, should endeavour thus, by all the instances of an exemplary and winning conversation, to gain an interest in the affections of those about them, and recommend religion to their good opinion. This was fulfilled in the return of the captives from Babylon, when all that were about them, pursuant to Cyrus's proclamation, contributed to their removal (Ezr 1:4, Ezr 1:6), not as the Egyptians, because they were sick of them, but because they loved them. 4. They should have the benefit of their service when they had returned home, for many would of choice go with them in the meanest post, rather than not go with them: They shall possess them in the land of the Lord for servants and handmaids; and as the laws of that land saved it from being the purgatory of servants, providing that they should not be oppressed, so the advantages of that land made it the paradise of those servants that had been strangers to the covenants of promise, for there was one law to the stranger and to those that were born in the land. Those whose lot is cast in the land of the Lord, a land of light, should take care that their servants and handmaids may share in the benefit of it, who will then find it better to be possessed in the Lord's land than possessors in any other. 5. They should triumph over their enemies, and those that would not be reconciled to them should be reduced and humbled by them: They shall take those captives whose captives they were and shall rule over their oppressors, righteously, but not revengefully. The Jews perhaps bought Babylonian prisoners out of the hands of the Medes and Persians and made slaves of them. Or this might have its accomplishment in their victories over their enemies in the times of the Maccabees. It is applicable to the success of the gospel (when those were brought into obedience to it who had made the greatest opposition to it, as Paul) and to the interest believers have in Christ's victories over their spiritual enemies, when he led captivity captive, to the power they gain over their own corruptions, and to the dominion the upright shall have in the morning, Psa 49:14. 6. They should see a happy termination of all their grievances (Isa 14:3): The Lord shall give thee rest from thy sorrow and thy fear, and from thy hard bondage. God himself undertakes to work a blessed change, (1.) In their state. They shall have rest from their bondage; the days of their affliction, though many, shall have an end; and the rod of the wicked, though it lie long, shall not always lie on their lot. (2.) In their spirit. They shall have rest from their sorrow and fear, sense of their present burdens and dread of worse. Sometimes fear puts the soul into a ferment as much as sorrow does, and those must needs feel themselves very easy to whom God has given rest from both. Those who are freed from the bondage of sin have a foundation laid for true rest from sorrow and fear.

Verse 4

The kings of Babylon, successively, were the great enemies and oppressors of God's people, and therefore the destruction of Babylon, the fall of the king, and the ruin of his family, are here particularly taken notice of and triumphed in. In the day that God has given Israel rest they shall take up this proverb against the king of Babylon. We must not rejoice when our enemy falls, as ours; but when Babylon, the common enemy of God and his Israel, sinks, then rejoice over her, thou heaven, and you holy apostles and prophets, Rev 18:20. The Babylonian monarchy bade fair to be an absolute, universal, and perpetual one, and, in these pretensions, vied with the Almighty; it is therefore very justly, not only brought down, but insulted over when it is down; and it is not only the last monarch, Belshazzar, who was slain on that night that Babylon was taken (Dan 5:30), who is here triumphed over, but the whole monarchy, which sunk in him; not without special reference to Nebuchadnezzar, in whom that monarchy was at its height. Now here, I. The fall of the king of Babylon is rejoiced in; and a most curious and elegant composition is here prepared, not to adorn his hearse or monument, but to expose his memory and fix a lasting brand of infamy upon it. It gives us an account of the life and death of this mighty monarch, how he went down slain to the pit, though he had been the terror of the mighty in the land of the living, Eze 32:27. In this parable we may observe, 1. The prodigious height of wealth and power at which this monarch and monarchy arrived. Babylon was a golden city, Isa 14:4 (it is a Chaldee word in the original, which intimates that she used to call herself so), so much did she abound in riches and excel all other cities, as gold does all other metals. She is gold-thirsty, or an exactress of gold (so some read it); for how do men get wealth to themselves but by squeezing it out of others? The New Jerusalem is the only truly golden city, Rev 21:18, Rev 21:21. The king of Babylon, having so much wealth in his dominions and the absolute command of it, by the help of that ruled the nations (Isa 14:6), gave them law, read them their doom, and at his pleasure weakened the nations (Isa 14:12), that they might not be able to make head against him. Such vast and victorious armies did he bring into the field, that, which way soever he looked, he made the earth to tremble, and shook kingdoms (Isa 14:16); all his neighbours were afraid of him, and were forced to submit to him. No one man could do this by his own personal strength, but by the numbers he has at his beck. Great tyrants, by making some do what they will, make others suffer what they will. How piteous is the case of mankind, which thus seems to be in a combination against itself, and its own rights and liberties, which could not be ruined but by its own strength! 2. The wretched abuse of all this wealth and power, which the king of Babylon was guilty of, in two instances: - (1.) Great oppression and cruelty. He is known by the name of the oppressor (Isa 14:4); he has the sceptre of the rulers (Isa 14:5), has the command of all the princes about him; but it is the staff of the wicked, a staff with which he supports himself in his wickedness and wickedly strikes all about him. He smote the people, not in justice, for their correction and reformation, but in wrath (Isa 14:6), to gratify his own peevish resentments, and that with a continual stroke, pursued them with his forces, and gave them no respite, no breathing time, no cessation of arms. He ruled the nations, but he ruled them in anger, every thing he said and did was in a passion; so that he who had the government of all about him had no government of himself. He made the world as a wilderness, as if he had taken a pride in being the plague of his generation and a curse to mankind, Isa 14:17. Great princes usually glory in building cities, but he gloried in destroying them; see Psa 9:6. Two particular instances, worse than all the rest, are here given of his tyranny: - [1.] That he was severe to his captives (Isa 14:17): He opened not the house of his prisoners; he did not let them loose homeward (so the margin reads it); he kept them in close confinement, and never would suffer any to return to their own land. This refers especially to the people of the Jews, and it is that which fills up the measure of the king of Babylon's iniquity, that he had detained the people of God in captivity and would by no means release them; nay, and by profaning the vessels of God's temple at Jerusalem, did in effect say that they should never return to their former use, Dan 5:3. For this he was quickly and justly turned out by one whose first act was to open the house of God's prisoners and send home the temple vessels. [2.] That he was oppressive to his own subjects (Isa 14:20): Thou hast destroyed thy land, and slain thy people; and what did he get by that, when the wealth of the land and the multitude of the people are the strength and honour of the prince, who never rules so safely, so gloriously, as in the hearts and affections of the people? But tyrants sacrifice their interests to their lusts and passions; and God will reckon with them for their barbarous usage of those who are under their power, whom they think they may use as they please. (2.) Great pride and haughtiness. Notice is here taken of his pomp, the extravagancy of his retinue, Isa 14:11. He affected to appear in the utmost magnificence. But that was not the worst: it was the temper of his mind, and the elevation of that, that ripened him for ruin (Isa 14:13, Isa 14:14): Thou has said in thy heart, like Lucifer, I will ascend into heaven. Here is the language of his vainglory, borrowed perhaps from that of the angels who fell, who not content with their first estate, the post assigned them, would vie with God, and become not only independent of him, but equal with him. Or perhaps it refers to the story of Nebuchadnezzar, who, when he would be more than a man, was justly turned into a brute, Dan 4:30. The king of Babylon here promises himself, [1.] That in pomp and power he shall surpass all his neighbours, and shall arrive at the very height of earthly glory and felicity, that he shall be as great and happy as this world can make him; that is the heaven of a carnal heart, and to that he hopes to ascend, and to be as far above those about him as the heaven is above the earth. Princes are the stars of God, which give some light to this dark world (Mat 24:29); but he will exalt his throne above them all. [2.] That he shall particularly insult over God's Mount Zion, which Belshazzar, in his last drunken frolic, seems to have had a particular spite against when he called for the vessels of the temple at Jerusalem, to profane them; see Dan 5:2. In the same humour he here said, I will sit upon the mount of the congregation (it is the same word that is used for the holy convocations), in the sides of the north; so Mount Zion is said to be situated, Psa 48:2. Perhaps Belshazzar was projecting an expedition to Jerusalem, to triumph in the ruins of it, at the time when God cut him off. [3.] That he shall vie with the God of Israel, of whom he had indeed heard glorious things, that he had his residence above the heights of the clouds. "But thither," says he, "will I ascend, and be as great as he; I will be like him whom they call the Most High." It is a gracious ambition to covet to be like the Most Holy, for he has said, Be you holy, for I am holy; but it is a sinful ambition to aim to be like the Most High, for he has said, He that exalteth himself shall be abased, and the devil drew our first parents in to eat forbidden fruit by promising them that they should be as gods. [4.] That he shall himself be deified after his death, as some of the first founders of the Assyrian monarchy were, and stars had even their names from them. "But," says he, "I will exalt my throne above them all." Such as this was his pride, which was the undoubted omen of his destruction. 3. The utter ruin that should be brought upon him. It is foretold, (1.) That his wealth and power should be broken, and a final period put to his pomp and pleasure. He has been long an oppressor, but he shall cease to be so, Isa 14:4. Had he ceased to be so by true repentance and reformation, according to the advice Daniel gave to Nebuchadnezzar, it might have been a lengthening of his life and tranquillity. But those that will not cease to sin God will make to cease. "The golden city, which one would have thought might continue for ever, has ceased; there is an end of that Babylon. The Lord, the righteous God, has broken the staff of that wicked prince, broken it over his head, in token of the divesting him of his office. God has taken his power from him, and rendered him incapable of doing any more mischief: he has broken the sceptres; for even these are brittle things, soon broken and often justly." (2.) That he himself should be seized: He is persecuted (v. 6); violent hands are laid upon him, and none hinders. It is the common fate of tyrants, when they fall into the power of their enemies, to be deserted by their flatterers, whom they took for their friends. We read of another enemy like this, of whom it is foretold that he shall come to his end and none shall help him, Dan 11:45. Tiberius and Nero thus saw themselves abandoned. (3.) That he should be slain, and go down to the congregation of the dead, to be free among them, as the slain that are no more remembered, Psa 88:5. He shall be weak as the dead are, and like unto them, Isa 14:10. His pomp is brought down to the grave (Isa 14:11), that is, it perishes with him; the pomp of his life shall not, as usual, end in a funeral pomp. True glory (that is, true grace) will go up with the soul to heaven, but vain pomp will go down with the body to the grave: there is an end of it. The noise of his viols is now heard no more. Death is a farewell to the pleasures, as well as to the pomps, of this world. This mighty prince, that used to lie on a bed of down, to tread upon rich carpets, and to have coverings and canopies exquisitely fine, now shall have the worms spread under him and the worms covering him, worms bred out of his own putrefied body, which, though he fancied himself a god, proved him to be made of the same mould with other men. When we are pampering and decking our bodies it is good to remember they will be worms'-meat shortly. (4.) That he should not have the honour of a burial, much less of a decent one and in the sepulchres of his ancestors. The kings of the nations lie in glory (Isa 14:18), either their dead bodies themselves so embalmed as to be preserved from putrefaction, as of old among the Egyptians, or their effigies (as with us) erected over their graves. Thus, as if they would defy the ignominy of death, they lay in a poor faint sort of glory, every one in his own house, that is, his own burying-place (for the grave is the house appointed for all living), a sleeping house, where the busy and troublesome will lie quiet and the troubled and weary lie at rest. But this king of Babylon is cast out and has no grave (Isa 14:19); his dead body is thrown, like that of a beast, into the next ditch or upon the next dunghill, like an abominable branch of some noxious poisonous plant, which nobody will touch, or as the clothes of malefactors put to death and by the hand of justice thrust through with a sword, on whose dead bodies heaps of stones are raised, or they are thrown into some deep quarry among the stones of the pit. Nay, the king of Babylon's dead body shall be as the carcases of those who are slain in a battle, which are trodden under feet by the horses and soldiers and crushed to pieces. Thus he shall not be joined with his ancestors in burial, Isa 14:20. To be denied decent burial is a disgrace, which, if it be inflicted for righteousness' sake (as Psa 79:2), may, as other similar reproaches, be rejoiced in (Mat 5:12); it is the lot of the two witnesses, Rev 11:9. But if, as here, it be the just punishment of iniquity, it is an intimation that evil pursues impenitent sinners beyond death, greater evil than that, and that they shall rise to everlasting shame and contempt. 4. The many triumphs that should be in his fall. (1.) Those whom he had been a great tyrant and terror to will be glad that they are rid of him, Isa 14:7, Isa 14:8. Now that he is gone the whole earth is at rest and is quiet, for he was the great disturber of the peace; now they all break forth into singing, for when the wicked perish there is shouting (Pro 11:10); the fir-trees and cedars of Lebanon now think themselves safe; there is no danger now of their being cut down, to make way for his vast armies or to furnish him with timber. The neighbouring princes and great men, who are compared to fir-trees and cedars (Zac 11:2), may now be easy, and out of fear of being dispossessed of their rights, for the hammer of the whole earth is cut asunder and broken (Jer 50:23), the axe that boasted itself against him that hewed with it, Isa 10:15. (2.) The congregation of the dead will bid him welcome to them, especially those whom he had barbarously hastened thither (Isa 14:9, Isa 14:10): "Hell from beneath is moved for thee, to meet thee at thy coming, and to compliment thee upon thy arrival at their dark and dreadful regions." The chief ones of the earth, who when they were alive were kept in awe by him and durst not come near him, but rose from their thrones, to resign them to him, shall upbraid him with it when he comes into the state of the dead. They shall go forth to meet him, as they used to do when he made his public entry into cities he had become master of; with such a parade shall he be introduced into those regions of horror, to make his disgrace and torment the more grievous to him. They shall scoffingly rise from their thrones and seats there, and ask him if he will please to sit down in them, as he used to do in their thrones on earth? The confusion that will then cover him they shall make a jest of: "Hast thou also become weak as we? Who would have thought it? It is what thou thyself didst not expect it would ever come to when thou wast in every thing too hard for us. Thou that didst rank thyself among the immortal gods, art thou come to take thy fate among us poor mortal men? Where is thy pomp now, and where thy mirth? How hast thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer! son of the morning! Isa 14:11, Isa 14:12. The king of Babylon shone as brightly as the morning star, and fancied that wherever he came he brought day along with him; and has such an illustrious prince as this fallen, such a star become a clod of clay? Did ever any man fall from such a height of honour and power into such an abyss of shame and misery?" This has been commonly alluded to (and it is a mere allusion) to illustrate the fall of the angels, who were as morning stars (Job 38:7), but how have they fallen! How art thou cut down to the ground, and levelled with it, that didst weaken the nations! God will reckon with those that invade the rights and disturb the peace of mankind, for he is King of nations as well as of saints. Now this reception of the king of Babylon into the regions of the dead, which is here described, surely is something more than a flight of fancy, and is designed to teach these solid truths: - [1.] That there is an invisible world, a world of spirits, to which the souls of men remove at death and in which they exist and act in a state of separation from the body. [2.] That separate souls have acquaintance and converse with each other, though we have none with them: the parable of the rich man and Lazarus intimates this. [3.] That death and hell will be death and hell indeed to those that fall unsanctified from the height of this world's pomps and the fulness of its pleasures. Son, remember, Luk 16:25. (3.) Spectators will stand amazed at his fall. When he shall be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit, and be lodged there, those that see him shall narrowly look upon him, and consider him (Isa 14:15, Isa 14:16); they shall scarcely believe their own eyes. "Never was death so great a change to any man as it is to him. Is it possible that a man, who a few hours ago looked so great, so pleasant, and was so splendidly adorned and attended, should now look so ghastly, so despicable, and lie thus naked and neglected? Is this the man that made the earth to tremble and shook kingdoms? Who could have thought he should ever come to this?" Psa 82:7. 5. Here is an inference drawn from all this (Isa 14:20): The seed of evil-doers shall never be renowned. The princes of the Babylonian monarchy were all a seed of evil-doers, oppressors of the people of God, and therefore they had this infamy entailed upon them. They shall not be renowned for ever (so some read it); they may look big for a time, but all their pomp will only render their disgrace at last the more shameful. There is no credit in a sinful way. II. The utter ruin of the royal family is here foretold, together with the desolation of The royal city. 1. The royal family is to be wholly extirpated. The Medes and Persians, that are to be employed in this destroying work, are ordered, when they have slain Belshazzar, to prepare slaughter for his children (Isa 14:21) and not to spare them. The little ones of Babylon must be dashed against the stones, Psa 137:9. These orders sound very harshly; but, (1.) They must suffer for the iniquity of their fathers, which is often visited upon the children, to show how much God hates sin and is displeased at it, and to deter sinners from it, which is the end of punishment. Nebuchadnezzar had slain Zedekiah's sons (Jer 52:10), and, for that iniquity of his, his seed are paid in the same coin. (2.) They must be cut off now, that they may not rise up to possess the land and do as much mischief in their day as their fathers had done in theirs - that they may not be as vexatious to the world by building cities for the support of their tyranny (which was Nimrod's policy, Gen 10:10, Gen 10:11) as their ancestors had been by destroying cities. Pharaoh oppressed Israel in Egypt by setting them to build cities, Exo 1:11. The providence of God consults the welfare of nations more than we are aware of by cutting off some who, if they had lived, would have done mischief. Justly may the enemies cut off the children: For I will rise up against them, saith the Lord of hosts (Isa 14:22), and if God reveal it as his mind that he will have it done, as none can hinder it, so none need scruple to further it. Babylon perhaps was proud of the numbers of her royal family, but God had determined to cut off the name and remnant of it, so that none should be left, to have both the sons and grandsons of the king slain; and yet we are sure he never did, nor ever will do, any wrong to any of his creatures. 2. The royal city is to be demolished and deserted, Isa 14:23. It shall be a possession for solitary frightful birds, particularly the bittern, joined with the cormorant and the owl, Isa 24:11. And thus the utter destruction of the New Testament Babylon is illustrated, Rev 18:2. It has become a cage of every unclean and hateful bird. Babylon lay low, so that when it was deserted, and no care taken to drain the land, it soon became pools of water, standing noisome puddles, as unhealthful as they were unpleasant: and thus God will sweep it with the besom of destruction. When a people have nothing among them but dirt and filth, and will not be made clean with the besom of reformation, what can they expect but to be swept off the face of the earth with the besom of destruction?

Verse 24

The destruction of Babylon and the Chaldean empire was a thing at a great distance; the empire had not risen to any considerable height when its fall was here foretold: it was almost 200 years from this prediction of Babylon's fall to the accomplishment of it. Now the people to whom Isaiah prophesied might ask, "What is this to us, or what shall we be the better for it, and what assurance shall we have of it?" To both questions he answers in these verses, by a prediction of the ruin both of the Assyrians and of the Philistines, the present enemies that infested them, which they should shortly be eye-witnesses of and have benefit by. These would be a present comfort to them, and a pledge of future deliverance, for the confirming of the faith of their posterity. God is to his people the same to day that he was yesterday and will be hereafter; and he will for ever be the same that he has been and is. Here is, I. Assurance given of the destruction of the Assyrians (Isa 14:25): I will break the Assyrian in my land. Sennacherib brought a very formidable army into the land of Judah, but there God broke it, broke all his regiments by the sword of a destroying angel. Note, Those who wrongfully invade God's land shall find that it is at their peril: and those who with unhallowed feet trample upon his holy mountains shall themselves there be trodden under foot. God undertakes to do this himself, his people having no might against the great company that came against them: "I will break the Assyrian; let me alone to do it who have angels, hosts of angels, at command." Now the breaking of the power of the Assyrian would be the breaking of the yoke from off the neck of God's people: His burden shall depart from off their shoulders, the burden of quartering that vast army and paying contribution; therefore the Assyrian must be broken, that Judah and Jerusalem may be eased. Let those that make themselves a yoke and a burden to God's people see what they are to expect. Now, 1. This prophecy is here ratified and confirmed by an oath (Isa 14:24): The Lord of hosts hath sworn, that he might show the immutability of his counsel, and that his people may have strong consolation, Heb 6:17, Heb 6:18. What is here said of this particular intention is true of all God's purposes: As I have thought, so shall it come to pass; for he is in one mind, and who can turn him? Nor is he ever put upon new counsels, or obliged to take new measures, as men often are when things occur which they did not foresee. Let those who are the called according to God's purpose comfort themselves with this, that, as God has purposed, so shall it stand, and on that their stability depends. 2. The breaking of the Assyrian power is made a specimen of what God would do with all the powers of the nations that were engaged against him and his church (Isa 14:26): This is the purpose that is purposed upon the whole earth (the whole world, so the Septuagint), all the inhabitants of the earth (so the Chaldee), not only upon the Assyrian empire (which was then reckoned to be in a manner all the world, as afterwards the Roman empire was, Luk 2:1, and with it many nations fell that had dependence upon it), but upon all those states and potentates that should at any time attack his land, his mountains. The fate of the Assyrian shall be theirs; they shall soon find that they meddle to their own hurt. Jerusalem, as it was to the Assyrians, will be to all people a burdensome stone; all that burden themselves with it shall infallibly be cut to pieces by it, Zac 12:3, Zac 12:6. The same hand of power and justice that is now to be stretched out against the Assyrian for invading the people of God shall be stretched out upon all the nations that do likewise. It is still true, and will ever be so, Cursed is he that curses God's Israel, Num 24:9. God will be an enemy to his people's enemies, Exo 23:22. 3. All the powers on earth are defied to change God's counsel (Isa 14:27): "The Lord of hosts has purposed to break the Assyrian's yoke, and every rod of the wicked laid upon the lot of the righteous; and who shall disannul this purpose? Who can persuade him to recall it, or find out a plea to evade it? His hand is stretched out to execute this purpose; and who has power enough to turn it back or to stay the course of his judgments?" II. Assurance is likewise given of the destruction of the Philistines and their power. This burden, this prophecy, that lay as a load upon them, to sink their state, came in the year that king Ahaz died, which was the first year of Hezekiah's reign, Isa 14:28. When a good king came in the room of a bad one then this acceptable message was sent among them. When we reform, then, and not till then, we may look for good news from heaven. Now here we have, 1. A rebuke to the Philistines for triumphing in the death of king Uzziah. He had been as a serpent to them (Isa 14:29), had bitten them, had smitten them, had brought them very low, Ch2 26:6. He warred against the Philistines, broke down their walls, and built cities among them. But when Uzziah died, or rather abdicated, it was told with joy in Gath and published in the streets of Ashkelon. It is inhuman thus to rejoice in our neighbour's fall. But let them not be secure; for though when Uzziah was dead they made reprisals upon Ahaz, and took many of the cities of Judah (Ch2 28:18), yet out of the root of Uzziah should come a cockatrice, a more formidable enemy than Uzziah was, even Hezekiah, the fruit of whose government should be to them a fiery flying serpent, for he should fall upon them with incredible swiftness and fury: we find he did so. Kg2 18:8, He smote the Philistines even to Gaza. Note, If God remove one useful instrument in the midst of his usefulness, he can, and will, raise up others to carry on and complete the same work that they were employed in and left unfinished. 2. A prophecy of the destruction of the Philistines by famine and war. (1.) By famine, Isa 14:30. "When the people of God, whom the Philistines has wasted, and distressed, and impoverished, shall enjoy plenty again," and the first-born of their poor shall feed (the poorest among them shall have food convenient), then, as for the Philistines, God will kill their root with famine. That which was their strength, and with which they thought themselves established as the tree is by the root, shall be starved and dried up by degrees, as those die that die by famine; and thus he shall slay the remnant: those that escape from one destruction are but reserved for another; and, when there are but a few left, those few shall at length be cut off, for God will make a full end. (2.) By war. When the needy of God's people shall lie down in safety, not terrified with the alarms of war, but delighting in the songs of peace, then every gate and every city of the Philistines shall be howling and crying (Isa 14:31), and there shall be a total dissolution of their state; for from Judea, which lay north of the Philistines, there shall come a smoke (a vast army raising a great dust, a smoke that shall be the indication of a devouring fire at hand), and none of all that army shall be alone in his appointed times; none shall straggle or be missing when they are to engage; but they shall all be vigorous and unanimous in attacking the common enemy, when the time appointed for the doing of it comes. None of them shall decline the public service, as, in Deborah's time, Reuben abode among the sheepfolds and Asher on the sea-shore, Jdg 5:16, Jdg 5:17. When God has work to do he will wonderfully endow and dispose men for it. III. The good use that should be made of all these events for the encouragement of the people of God (Isa 14:32): What shall one then answer the messengers of the nations? 1. This implies, (1.) That the great things God does for his people are, and cannot but be, taken notice of by their neighbours; those among the heathen make remarks upon them, Psa 126:2. (2.) That messengers will be sent to enquire concerning them. Jacob and Israel had long been a people distinguished from all others and dignified with uncommon favours; and therefore some for good-will, others for ill-will, and all for curiosity, are inquisitive concerning them. (3.) That it concerns us always to be ready to give a reason of the hope that we have in the providence of God, as well as in his grace, in answer to every one that asks it, with meekness and fear, Pe1 3:15. And we need go no further than the sacred truths of God's word for a reason; for God, in all he does, is fulfilling the scripture. (4.) The issue of God's dealings with his people shall be so clearly and manifestly glorious that any one, every one, shall be able to give an account of them to those that enquire concerning them. Now, 2. The answer which is to be given to the messengers of the nations is, (1.) That God is and will be a faithful friend to his church and people, and will secure and advance their interests. Tell them that the Lord has founded Zion. This gives an account both of the work itself that is done and of the reason of it. What is God doing in the world, and what is he designing in all the revolutions of states and kingdoms, in the ruin of some nations and the rise of others? He is, in all this, founding Zion; he is aiming at the advancement of his church's interests; and what he aims at he will accomplish. The messengers of the nations, when they sent to enquire concerning Hezekiah's successes against the Philistines, expected to learn by what politics, counsels, and arts of war he carried his point; but they are told that these successes were not owing to any thing of that nature, but to the care God took of his church and the interest he had in it. The Lord has founded Zion, and therefore the Philistines must fall. (2.) That his church has and will have a dependence upon him: The poor of his people shall trust in it, his poor people who have lately been brought very low, even the poorest of them; they more than others, for they have nothing else to trust to, Zep 3:12, Zep 3:13. The poor receive the gospel, Mat 11:5. They shall trust to this, to this great truth, that the Lord has founded Zion; on this they shall build their hopes, and not on an arm of flesh. This ought to give us abundant satisfaction as to public affairs, that however it may go with particular persons, parties, and interests, the church, having God himself for its founder and Christ the rock for its foundation, cannot but stand firm. The poor of his people shall betake themselves to it (so some read it), shall join themselves to his church and embark in its interests; they shall concur with God in his designs to establish his people, and shall wind up all on the same plan, and make all their little concerns and projects bend to that. Those that take God's people for their people must be willing to take their lot with them and cast in their lot among them. Let the messengers of the nations know that the poor Israelites, who trust in God, having, like Zion, their foundation in the holy mountains (Psa 87:1), are like Zion, which cannot be removed, but abides for ever (Psa 125:1.), and therefore they will not fear what man can do unto them.

Verse 1

14:1-2 This message for Israel separates two prophecies of judgment against Babylon (ch 13; 14:3-23).

14:1 The Hebrew word here translated mercy draws from the imagery of a woman’s maternal care for her child to illustrate God’s merciful love for his people (see also 49:15; 66:13). • God had initially chosen Israel as his special people when he called Abraham (see 41:8; Gen 12:1-3). Although their status did not change during the Exile, they faced God’s wrath like any other wicked nation because they had rejected him. • settle once again in their own land: This promise began to be fulfilled in 538 BC (see Ezra 1:1-11). • People from many different nations would join Israel as the people of God (see also Isa 2:3-4; 11:11-12; 19:18-25; 60:1-14).

Verse 2

14:2 Just as Israel was subject to the Lord, so the nations of the world would submit themselves to the Lord through Israel (45:14; 49:7, 23; 60:12, 14; 66:23). • The oppressed nation of Israel will rule over its enemies, assuming a position of power and favor with God.

Verse 3

14:3-23 This taunting song for the king of Babylon is in the form of a funeral dirge (cp. Rev 18).

14:3 God gives . . . rest (i.e., relief; 28:12; see Deut 25:19; 2 Sam 7:11) from the sorrow and fear, . . . slavery and chains Israel experienced under foreign oppressors (see Isa 9:4).

Verse 4

14:4 A taunt is a mocking comparison in song form. In this instance, the king of Babylon is compared to a dead man entering the world of the dead.

Verse 7

14:7-8 The land and people will be at rest and quiet because the oppression has ended and the king of Babylon has died. • The whole creation will join in praise, able to sing again (see also 42:11; 44:23; cp. Rom 8:22).

Verse 9

14:9 The Babylonians saw the place of the dead (Hebrew Sheol) as a place of no return. • stand up (literally get up from their thrones): The thrones reflect the Babylonian concept of the life hereafter as a continuation of the same mode of existence as the present life. It appears that the other kings are honoring the great king of Babylon, but the next verses tell a different story.

Verse 10

14:10 weak as we are: The Babylonian king had no power over anyone after death and was unable to leave Sheol. The Israelites will mock this great king who on earth appeared to have no weaknesses.

Verse 11

14:11 Babylon’s might and power and the sound of the harp were ended, and its magnificence was destroyed (see also Rev 18:22). • Maggots and worms symbolized death and decomposition (Isa 66:24).

Verse 12

14:12 fallen from heaven, O shining star: These words allude to the Canaanite story of the god Helel’s rebellion against the god El (chief deity of the Canaanite pantheon) and his fall from heaven. Some see the fall of the king of Babylon here as symbolizing the fall of Satan (see Ezek 28; Luke 10:18; Rev 12:9). However, there is little to suggest that Isaiah understood it in that way. He was thinking of the historical king of Babylon. • son of the morning: The battle took place under the early morning sun. The Latin Vulgate translates the term as Lucifer (morning star), a name for Satan in Christian tradition, but the Hebrew text makes no apparent reference here to Satan.

Verse 13

14:13 This verse alludes to the Canaanite belief that the chief god El and the other gods were enthroned on Mount Zaphon, a northern mountain (see Ps 48:2; for a New Testament application, see Matt 11:23; Luke 10:15).

Verse 14

14:14 Most High: See Gen 14:19-22.

Verse 15

14:15-17 This is a restatement of 14:9-11. The dead spirits inhabiting the place of the dead will be startled and amazed that the Babylonian king, who ruled the world with his merciless might, has absolutely no power in death.

Verse 18

14:18-20 The absence of a proper burial was a sign of great shame and dishonor. Unlike other kings, the king of Babylon would be disgraced in judgment.

Verse 21

14:21 As another sign of disgrace, the king of Babylon would have no children to provide a future legacy. • because of their father’s sins: God looks at individuals in relationship to their families and their people. Here, the Babylonian king’s children had joint responsibility for their father’s actions (see also Deut 5:9-10).

Verse 22

14:22-23 Isaiah summarized the previous taunt (14:3-21) with this prophecy, spoken in the first person. God decrees the destruction and desolation of Babylon.

Verse 24

14:24-27 This prophecy resumes declaring judgment on Assyria (see ch 10). The placement of this prophecy after the judgment against Babylon suggests close connections between Assyria and Babylon.

14:24 I have planned . . . I have decided: No nation can either diminish or resist God’s plans to bring judgment against Assyria or his plans in general. The prophets understood and communicated God’s plan so that his people could respond appropriately.

Verse 25

14:25 This prophecy told what would happen when Sennacherib attacked Hezekiah some years later in 701 BC (see chs 36–37).

Verse 26

14:26 The Lord’s power over Assyria is just one example of his sovereignty over the whole earth.

Verse 29

14:29 The king who attacked Philistia was probably Ahaz (14:28). • a more poisonous snake: This probably refers to one of the later Assyrian kings, either Sennacherib (701 BC), Esarhaddon (680 BC), or Ashurbanipal (668 BC).

Verse 31

14:31 The advancing army, probably Assyria, would stir up clouds of dust like smoke that were ominously visible in the north.

Verse 32

14:32 The Lord has built Jerusalem: God was fully willing and capable of defending Judah, and he did not want the kingdom to make alliances with nations such as the Philistines to protect themselves from the invading Assyrians.